MANIFEST-O by Concrete Utopia

MANIFEST-O A Concrete Utopia publication.

INDEX 3-4 7 9 11-25 27-30 33-50 52-55 57-58 61-69 71-77 79-81 83-87

Forward Melanie Kress Introduction Andrew Gorin Please Stencil on the Wall Ryan Weber Untitled Anonymous The Normalization Will Not Be Televised John Miller A Manifesto Interview Niki Korth & ClĂŠmence de Montgolfier Space Camp Ash Holwell & Nels Nelson Rethinking Synthesis Eli Epstein Deutsch Headgarden Abigail Cohen A Sincere Act of Irony Joe Blankholm Manifesto, Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an Ideology in Here Hilary Sand Machine Manifesto Provisional Gov. of Shadows

88-107 109 111-113 115-117 119-121 123-125 127-128 130-131 133-134 137-138 141-142

Unabomberâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Manifesto Donald Daedalus Baader Meinhof Wanted Poster Rebecca Lieberman Guidelines to Proper Practice David Lasky Personism: a Manifesto Frank Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Hara Good Art Manifesto Curver Thorodsen Worthwhile Manifesto David Muenzer & Liana Moskowitz Exercise for People and Others Alicia Mountain The Lakeside Manifesto Matt Munziker Manifest: Die Hedonistiche Internationale Bert Palm A Call to Arms Skye Ruozzi See, Right Here Rosie DuPont

MELANIE KRESS

FORWARD philosophical system, belief system, set of beliefs or values, value system, value judgment, ethical system, ethos, morals, school of thought, code, moral code, code of practice, code of conduct, standards, principles, ideology, world view, Weltanschauunhg [Ger]; teaching, creed, credo, stance, position, manifesto law, the law, body of law, corpus juris, set of principles; law, bylaw, statute, decree, mandate, manifesto, ordinance, edict, order, standing order, canon, rule, rescript, precept; law and equality, constitution, written constitution, unwritten constitution, charter, institution, codification, codified law, legal code, pandect, penal code, civil code, written law, lex scripta, statute law, common law, unwritten law, private law; international law, law of nations, jus gentium, jus civile; military law, law of the sea, law of air, law of commerce, commercial law, business law, lex mercatoria, contracts law, criminal law, civil law, constitutional law, law of the land, long arm of the law; canon law, ecclesiastical law, encyclical, bull belief system, religion, faith, piety, religious belief, religious feeling, persuasion; creed, credo, dogma, canon, principle, tenet, articles of faith, declaration of faith, statement of belief, catechism; manifesto, doctrine, school, cult, philosophy, ideology publication, book, periodical, newsletter, announcement, declaration, proclamation, notice, notification, pronouncement, speech, statement, sermon; report, news, communiquĂŠ, bulletin, manifesto, pronunciamento, edict, decree, encyclical, ukase, ban

affirmation, affirmance, statement, positive statement, affirmative, assertion, averment, asseveration, declaration, dictum, ipse dixit [L]; announcement, annunciation, enunciation, pronouncement, proclamation, predication, manifesto, position paper; emphasis, stress, stressed point, overstatement prospectus, brochure, manifesto, platform, party ticket, ticket, slate, party line command, commandment, order, direct order; instruction, direction, ruling, rule, regulation, directive, word, sign, signal; law, act, enactment, legislation, manifesto, prescription, precept, charge, behest, dictate, ordinance, edict, fiat; canon, bull, encyclical, papal decree, decree, ukase, prescript; order of the day, marching orders; statement, pronouncement, proclamation, declaration, dictum, royal command; negative command, prohibition, proscription, countermand, interdict, veto, ban, embargo1

MELANIE KRESS

1 Bartlettâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Rogetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Thesaurus, (New York: Little Brown and Company. 1996), 4, 81, 120, 214, 228, 374, 407.

ANDREW GORIN

INTRODUCTION In its early 20th-century iteration, the manifesto is a public declaration of aesthetic principles describing the current or prospective practice of a group or individual. In line with the nominal metaphor of the Avant-Garde, the manifestos of Modernism tend to be militant, or at least fauxmilitant, in toneâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;characterized by a sense of theatricality and crisis that is as entertaining as it is suspect and subject to critique. These texts received their energy from a fusion of political and aesthetic concerns (the aestheticization of the political or the politicization of the aesthetic) often matched with a lexical, even typographical, ebullience. It is the interdisciplinary nature of such documentsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the way they serve a critical as well as creative function, assuming an active role in the world while standing nonetheless, as conceptual art objects, apart from itâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;that makes them so fascinating and so complex. For its inaugural project, Concrete Utopia has issued a call for manifestos. The intention is to collect, into one, extended space, a range of artifacts, art objects, performances, and performative records which by their broad association with the history of the manifesto reflect upon the genre and its viability today. In bringing together a configuration of conceptual vectors traditionally defined by independence and opposition, this exhibition sheds light on the rhetorical value of manifestary expression, transforming a microcosmic art environment into an arena for absurdity and play.

RYAN WEBER

PLEASE STENCIL ON THE WALL: PLEASE STENCIL ON THE WALL:

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The past forty years have made it all but impossible to write an art manifesto. Those of us who have partaken in a liberal arts education (especially those who focused on studio art / art history and theory) understand too well the “impossibility” of the manifesto, a programme guiding an art “movement;” that is, the criteria required for what is generally taken to be a movement or a manifesto have been precluded by recent theory. We are thus inculcated with the futility of exercises in teleological art, persuaded of this futility until we cannot “intelligently” believe otherwise. To perform the “impossible,” to write a manifesto, to begin a movement, we must first understand exactly why were taught what we were, why we’re denied entire realms of possibility, and upon what foundations our collective education rests. That is, we must fully comprehend the assumptions that led us to believe that any sufficiently critical artwork is necessarily apolitical (truly political, as in, other than satire, a bold challenge to our structuring regime) and, certainly, without radicality. Regardless of whether such a recitation is familiar, I believe that this manifesto glosses our education and history from a vastly different vantage point, allowing us to fully exploit their critical weaknesses. (I hope, given the medium, that it’s fine if I speak a bit broadly.) After this, I will begin a manifesto in earnest. We will see that not only is it possible to write a manifesto—one that outlines the modes of an explicitly political group of movements—but that it is absolutely vital to our contemporary situation as artists that we do so. Many of us were educated in arts programs where the post-structuralist and deconstructionist tendencies of the 60s and 70s are still highly

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influential. The ideas and processes promoted by post-structuralist and deconstructionist thought are the same that inspired many artists from postminimalism until probably the late seventies, at least until the return of object-based art that accompanied the rise of conservatism in the early 80s. Some of these notions, deep criticism of the institutions and environs within which art functions (thus the rise of institutional critique), and denial of a category proper to the artist/author (community-based work and projects, itself an outgrowth/performance of, and extrapolation upon, institutional critique), cut right to the heart of many of the early twentieth century’s avant-garde movements: reconfiguring the artist outside the parameters of the bourgeois, and developing a space to directly challenge the structuring regime. However, after the failure of (for instance) France’s student movement of 1968, and the deathblow delivered to the United States’ protest movement the same year, notions popularized by post-structuralism and deconstruction were neutered of their radical political implications and generally capitulated to capitalism. The results of the deepest questionings of the producer/worker (artist) never materialized. The criticality so cherished was used to promote total suspension of judgment—vacillation and learned ambivalence became, and perhaps still are, the order of the day. Criticisms that sought to read and evaluate contexts in order to draw specific meanings more responsible to their own formative processes (thereby broadening the sites of meaning formation), were read as denials of meaning altogether, and thus bolstered attitudes of absolute relativism and infinite exchange (for example, attitudes supportive of late capitalism abound in popular and art world misreadings of Baudrillard’s “The Precession of Simulacra”). The primacies given to contingency, process, and difference produced the same results. This is the educational environment given to artists of

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our generation as well as at least one before us. Its legacy, the celebration of the theoretical underpinnings given to Warhol’s exchanges and relationships to the market—and artists operating in imitation—is the single most egregious symptom of the implications of such an environment. So, categories such as impact, success, goal, Project, political involvement, and opposition, have, under the late capitalist structuring regime (though never expressly for or by it; this is one of the insidious operations of capitalism: to cast the responsibility of operation and decision as belonging solely to those persons involved, which is to say it completely hides its influence and provenance), been so thoroughly deconstructed, it is (incorrectly) assumed that they cannot be reassembled for a purpose: a real, sincere purpose directly opposed to capitalism—the aforementioned “impossibility” of the manifesto is of course indicative of this assumption. This belief in the impotency of anticapitalism exists because the institutions handed us---those that educated us: the university, the market, and the museum---are run largely by liberals (though merely cultural liberals, perhaps), who will not admit their own complicity in the failings of the late 60s and early 70s, much less recognize the steps necessary to avoiding such a failure as concerns revolutionary action for the present. Namely: those responsible for us cannot understand that the very same intellectual tactics once used to buttress revolutionary programmes can be returned, in full, to the service of anticapitalist causes, because they cannot understand the ways in which they failed. Our understanding of failure is necessary to such a return of revolutionary tactics because that return is only possible through those strategies’ completion, the realization of each and every one of their social and political implications: the completed realization of anti-capitalism today, now, here, and well into the future. We are thus girded against the mistakes of those come before.

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All of the above is simply to say that a close review of our shared history opens up vast political and artistic possibilities long thought dead or dormant. To see plainly the methods used during our youth to disabuse us of our revolutionary fervor and idealism is to make possible (again) those very ideals and, more importantly, the continual striving towards their enactment, whatever that may be. Now begins the manifesto proper; that is, what do we do with that which we now know; where do we go?

To move forward from this point, we must attack those institutions mentioned above. With regard to the art market/economy, a true attack cannot be staged from within the structure because the antecedents accepted by actors within the institution make a successful attack impossible. What sort of antecedents or structural concepts? There are two: the notion of the artist in its entirety; the exchange value of the work, no matter its form (or lack, i.e. LeWitt paid for the right to materially construct his ideas). Here intersect the post-structuralist examinations of authorship by (for example) Barthes (explored perhaps most famously by the artists of the “Pictures” generation), and Marxist critiques of the producer/artist explored by the Constructivists and Benjamin (of which the post-structuralists and “appropriation” artists were all too aware). To internalize such criticisms of art making and its surrender to an exchange economy is to understand that, to push art towards the radically new, it is necessary to challenge capitalism directly; that is the only open space. To do this, we must perform the most radical gesture: we must abandon any semblance of being an artist and selling our art. The Constructivists hinted at such possibilities, but unfortunately, they did not take seriously the necessity that a socialist art have as its foundational tenet no artists. There were those among them who desired to recover artistry from its zero point, perhaps frightened

We have models for an overturning of the market

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by the possibility of its absolute absence (I’m thinking of Lissitzky’s relationship to Malevich, and Rodchenko’s post-Productivist phase). The same can easily be said with regard to LeWitt’s earliest Conceptualist exercises, Smithson’s earthworks, Levine’s appropriation photographs, and, today, Relational art. That is, none of the above artists took the logical implications of their philosophies seriously enough to realize them; none of them scrutinized their authorial role so completely that they abandoned it. How would they have accomplished such abandonment? Anonymity. To remove myself from my work, to sever the connection between maker and made, is to deny ownership of the work, and to give it freely to all. This same gesture confronts the art market by refusing the work’s exchange value, thereby freeing it to the general economy of life. Perhaps more tellingly, such freedom is a dialogue: art to life, life to art. This means that as the two disappear completely into one another, we begin to cherish our daily practice and perception as art itself. Such appreciation is distinct from capitalism’s aestheticization of our world because it operates without value, in direct and fierce opposition to market economic concepts and patterns. Anonymizing eschews entirely those denials of meaning pervasive in a life beholden to the market. It reveals significance, and provides a network of meaning indisputable as it exists as each of our lived contexts, our reasons to live, to create. Thus, we once-artists and producers no longer operate within the parameters of the consumer/ producer binary given by capitalism (a given-ness that has made art in its image). Instead, we have full access to all roles available in life, not as subservient to production, but as they are. I implore you to explore anonymity in your own art; see what shifts occur as your work and its distribution methods are made anonymous.

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that would usher in a new episteme (I have noted some examples, Smithson chief among them). The most explicit of these models, the easiest to apply to our situation, is the notion of artwork as community, first developed in the 1970s (though many Relational artists partake in this heritage as well, at least as they’ve been so far theorized). What I mean by “artwork as community” is, simply, any project that makes intentional the building of a community. In this context, “community” denotes a group of like-minded individuals working with common purpose in pursuit of an agreed upon goal or goals. It is understood as fundamentally given to the choice of each of its members (it is radically democratic); that is, it does not arise by chance, but operates intentionally from its inception. Such communities do not work to “revitalize” an area or “relieve” problems within already-extant communities (the word used here much more loosely to describe a simple geographic proximity, i.e. a town). Worth repetition: they are not the neoliberal “community art projects” that have become popular since the 1980s; these community projects are, like the apoliticized theoretical practices discussed in the second section, often only well-meaning enablers and purveyors of the cultural hegemony of late capitalism (while it is true that improving the quality of life for impoverished communities is a laudable and worthwhile goal, the ways in which community-based art projects have gone about such improvements unfortunately usually serve to mask the problems endemic to capitalism, issues that grow from the root of our modern economic structure). Art that exists as a community (never the other way around, keep in mind the last section) avoids such a problematic because it does not bind the wound; it deepens the cut, it tears at the body. It intervenes to expose the weaknesses of our contemporary social/economic model (here again, capitalism). More plainly, these communities act as ruptures within capitalism: they open spaces in which anti-capitalism is not only made

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possible, but flourishes; they model anti-capitalist behaviors and lifestyles in order to demonstrate how we can live happily outside of, and opposed to, financialization. We come to understand that capitalism is not necessary; its demands upon us (work/jobs, monetary exchange) are pointless. These communities’ placement within cities is essential to their success because they are not only models for us, but also models for the disenfranchised: those most receptive to radical political action; those who suffer most under the market; those who, because of capitalism’s dominance and methods, believe themselves absolutely unable to affect real change striking at the source of their misery. That is, if lower classes can, en masse, understand the permanence of their condition within capitalism, and at the same time literally see others operating entirely outside the mechanisms affecting that condition, they will instantly become indispensable partners in the movements against capitalism. Let me be precise when I explain this, because it is perhaps the most crucial point to comprehend. The work of building a physical community that operates outside of capitalist exchange imparts to its participants a working knowledge of many related processes and trades: grant writing, utilizing the resources of nonprofit organizations (such as food sharing networks) and NGO’s, (if necessary) seeking out government initiatives, learning local channels of bargaining and bartering, raising crops and (perhaps) livestock, construction (in wood and metal), plumbing, and very fundamental engineering. Somewhat obviously, the above list details the skills needed to fund and (literally and figuratively) construct a community independent of capitalism. Once the members of a community become comfortable with their sets of knowledge—to the point that the community is self-sustaining—they can aid those outside of the community proper in developing the same skill sets.

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A broad, brief example: my family and I, along with perhaps five other friends, gather the funds (most likely from monthly savings, or maybe from municipal government programs) needed to take into our care an abandoned house or apartment building in need of some repair, though nothing too drastic or costly. (Some may find it easier to live in smaller groups never larger than five, in which case it would be advisable to have two residential structures if not adjacent at least on the same block.) Together we transform the building into a comfortable, though spare, environment for five to ten people (able to be sustained by five, able to accommodate ten). During the repairs of the building, we’ve made room for an urban homestead, either by cultivating the soil on the lot, or if there is none, converting the roof or indoor spaces so that they can afford the crops necessary to feed the group through the year (not as massive an amount as you might think). Given the number of the members of the household, and keeping in mind that we’re living very energy efficient lifestyles, it’s not absurd to assume that electricity can be produced on site by a number of means (two or three solar panels [possibly homemade], bicycle generators or any of a number of self-propelling homemade generators [magnetic]). Gutter-attached rain barrels can be routed into the plumbing through filters, the grey water can in turn drain to the crops so that a natural water source provides for much or all of the group’s needs. (A rooftop solar water heater provides hot water.) The entire building is heated and cooled passively as designed during the repair process. Of course, this is ideal; but even if each of the above mechanisms cannot or does not provide one-hundred percent of the building’s resources, it vastly reduces the amount of money needed for the day to day: it still relieves the members of the need to hold jobs. They are able to give all of their time to leisure, the maintenance of the building(s), and to helping others do the same. To help others is to enable the emulation of

At this juncture, I may not need to delineate the differences between our communities and

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those tactics already demonstrated as successful in the given area. We constantly speak to others of the freedoms of an anti-capitalist lifestyle and community---in the bare sense of the word, we are evangelists for our cause (messengers of its good), though we never engage in the evangelism that forces itself upon others, condemning them if they refuse it. Quite simply we act as good neighbors, politically present and involved, and we understand this behavior will attract those curious about our community. In such an instance, a family down the street may be interested in learning how they can convert their electrical supply to one self-generated or simply begin a homestead. We then aid them in the construction of this project, while teaching them to teach others. Although we are explicitly political with our actions, it isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t necessary that they be as well, as long as they understand the meaning of such measures as implicitly antiinstitutionalâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;as opposed to market dictates and operational structuresâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and are willing to lend a hand in helping others in the area achieve similar degrees of sustainability. Once one member of the surrounding neighborhood reaps the benefits of our community, others will become interested. Once they utilize our services, still more others are curious, and so on. This is a groundswell, the forging of a true community bound by the framework of its actions, a procedure that is slowly exponential in growth. It is a strategy that deracinates late capitalism; it allows the huddled to throw off from themselves the seemingly necessary burdens of productivity and consumption, the cornerstones of contemporary structural oppression. Portions of society slowly coalesce around an anti-capitalist agenda, and together we widen those once-tiny spaces of possibility, those potentialities of radical action: we create an oppositional force proportional to late capitalism.

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those artist-settlers who act as harbingers of gentrification and “urban renewal.” However, it deserves scrutiny for a number of reasons related to the larger nature of the movements at hand, as well as to dispel any notions of paternalism and privilege that might become attached to our behavior. First, and most significantly, unlike gentrifiers, our communities operate with a stated goal: the outright rejection of financialization and neoliberal global economic policies, the end of the market economic episteme and equivalent exchange and debt, etc. So though we may literally be gentry (many of us are middle class), we operate totally outside such an assignment simply because we act intentionally. That is: we are not susceptible to co-option by the same mechanisms that inevitably assimilate young urban artists. It is important to note here something only touched upon in the first section, something that has held true for each generation since the historical avant-garde: that any movement, stripped of its politics, is made merely an aesthetic movement (this is a facet of Bürger’s argument against the “neo” avant-garde, as well as the crux of many modernist tirades leveled against postmodernist tendencies). As stated above, this same problem has been the curse of the American and European left since the early 1970s, and the continual indulgence in aesthetic practices masquerading as, or in lieu of, true political programs serves to only further consolidate power in the hands of a despotic global upper-class (many of us unfortunately unwittingly included therein). The pretense of an aesthetic as political per se has, in large part, fueled the gentrification crisis of the past fifteen years. When aesthetic considerations are made secondary, and creators, along with their creations, function as primarily political agents, the main catalyst of gentrification ceases to operate. Secondly, and naturally tied to the first point, is our relationship to our neighbors.

All of this said, it is plain to see the importance and possibilities of wide scale anti-capitalist movements and their component pieces. But why is it important for artists to be a part of these

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While many of those whose activities precipitate gentrification view their surroundings as either an unfortunate necessity of their own situation (whatever that may be), or act as disaster tourists, we fully appreciate those neighborhoods that have taken us in and offer us a chance to provide ourselves for their service. We understand the actualities of an area to be indicators of the liberating potentialities lying thereunder. Plainly: we do not seek to attract the like-minded to and around our communities (though that is obviously helpful), but to foster the growth of our community as its host neighborhood; this is not viral, but symbiotic. We do not want to replaceâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;we want instead to cull from our neighbors the best of that which is already present. We hope that they do the same for us, as the model is never exclusively one-sided. Finally, I should add that I recognize in this proposal the subtle shades of imperialist thought processes, but while some loosely historical materialist assumptions could be applied here (and, astutely, Orwellâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thoughts on class warfare), we (usually middle-class) are in no way at all using those whom we teach (usually lower-class) as a tool for an end outside only available to one or the other group. This fact holds true because we are not seeking to succeed the structures that we oppose. So, although there is an end, each of us is just as much its subject as its means: we too are ends, all of us, indistinguishable by class. None of us are usedâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; we use ourselves: as groups, as neighbors, and as community members. (The issue of race, related directly to class as just broached, is certainly a delicate one, though not so fragile that it cannot be properly addressed with the preceding outlook, thoughtfully applied.)

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movements? This manifesto began as a call to artists to abandon themselves to anti-capitalist political action, and now, it seems that, because of our abandonment, we are given to society as regular actors within it. Why are we at all special in a purportedly egalitarian framework? I cannot stress enough the importance of the answer: artists are that segment of society creatively gifted (of course we retain our gifts even after disavowing our limited roles as artists), and through creating, artists bring into reality that which was previously only imagined (or unimagined); they realize objects and ideas heretofore held to be impossible. In this way, we make possible/imaginable/relatable for others, concepts previously outside the realm of comprehension. If it is not apparent, this is the exact same operation that communistic art projects as communities carry out with respect to the environments in which they are situated. The community model realizes a way of life earlier left un-thought and unimagined (or at least considered unobtainable). By doing so, the models ignite radicalism in the minds of those with whom they interact: to make possible for the oppressed the death of their master is to foretell that very death; it is only a matter of sweat and patience. In this way, artists are an absolutely key component of the ever-burgeoning anti-capitalist fronts: they force forward the slow revolution. The work is built upon our backs; we carry it forward with others. Upon freeing ourselves of the constraints of artist-hood, releasing ourselves to the pure joy of a production as life, we deliver ourselves from the conditions of capital to a space of radical widespread social change. To be clear: to embrace anonymity is not to surrender object-based art, but to thoroughly and wholly reconfigure its systems of delivery (galleries and museums) so that they are no longer familiar; it is to give to yourself an infinite field of art: the arena of the breathtakingly new and challenging, the steady build to a society

without precedent. To produce art devoid of itself, most especially within (or in league with) the aforementioned mechanisms of community-building, is to precipitate a singular social transformation.

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I’ve laid out some of the most basic points of conceptually supported, practicable, anticapitalist lifestyles. And though I’ve discussed in great detail how community models will positively affect their surrounding localities (the proliferation of the aforementioned lifestyles), and how we, as those most creatively inclined, are key to that operation, it remains to be seen why our communities and views will gain enough momentum to truly pose a threat, or viable large-scale alternative, to global capitalism. To encounter this question properly is to examine specifically the sociopsychological symptoms of the contemporary capitalist situation. We certainly could have posed such a question earlier (and perhaps should have), but here we are, so let us restate it more clearly: what conditions unique to contemporary global civilization compel radical action; why must we act? (Tellingly, this is the same question as why will we succeed.) This question doesn’t require a great deal of reflection. Any one of us can readily cite the myriad atrocities to which we’ve grown accustomed in our everyday—tragedies that, it becomes increasingly apparent, capitalism requires to bolster the lifestyles of its global upper-class (which includes many of us, see again my earlier gloss of gentrification). Each of these problems is significantly tied to global capitalism and its assumed history (empire and colonialism, mercantilism, etc.). Some of them are fairly recent and have as the source of their continuation the constant scandal of capitalism’s willful disregard and attention to self-interest. Others are immediate, and stand at the very center of the global media’s current conversation about the relationship between the global rich and poor. These are the freshest

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wounds, the ones that expose most obviously the violence and fear inherent to capitalismâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s global dominance, the ones that consequently enrage even those least amenable to anti-capitalism. Our situation today is thus one in which the absolutely unmitigable deficiencies of capitalism have never been more apparent. Who among us can say that we live in the best of all possible worlds? Not a one: not an urban leftist artist, not an upper-middle-class stay-at-home parent, not those on the religious right, not the wealthy, not the poor. To be sure, none of these groups or persons may agree on the necessary solutions, but it is highly probable that each can distinguish similarly rooted problems. This awareness, and the widespread anger that grows more acute with each new scandal, is the psychological motivator underlying our slow revolution. It is the factor that ensures success, the vast coalition of discontent that sets our stage apart from that of our forbears and their failures. Just as our communal models rupture the physical spaces where the shortcomings of capital are most obvious, so too are these sociopsychological fault lines our personal sites for anti-capitalist action. Far from quashing the desire to pursue modes of being outside of, or opposed to, capitalism, the last decade (the end of the end of history) has made such a pursuit more appealing to a greater section of the global populace. This is not at all to say that we have as our comrades a large swath of society, or that the radical change for which this manifesto calls will itself appeal to a broad base. I mention it only to further answer the above question: why we will win. While we are moving towards that which is, by capitalism deemed, impossible, we are not doing so from a similarly impossible place. The set of conditions from which we operate is all too pervasive, all of our emotions so real; the seeds of revolution are sown deeply within all of us. We must, even with the above reassurances of a final, long-fought victory over capitalism,

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remain confident and courageous in our everyday activities of resistance, while recognizing of the probable duration of our struggle. Though, by organizing, we spark an anti-capitalism for the present, that spark seeks to burn into the future, to make of itself a wildfire, and is unsatisfied until it does. That is, we are not committing ourselves to a five-year revolution, but one that is perhaps twenty years in length. Realizing this fact may, for some, discourage radical action, or may be the cause for anxiety. Of course, anxiety is to be expected when confronting the unknown and uncomfortable. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not a feeling that we should seek to escape or ignore, rather we embrace it as it signals the sincerity and uncompromising nature of our efforts; it betrays our bravery. For those most committed to the movements and their spirit, it acts as a companion to both confidence and courage, bearing in us a realistic psychological and emotional ground (as opposed to an idealistic naivetĂŠ); it gives rise to a zealous dedication to our goals. This acceptance and attitude as well differentiates us from those radicals of 1968, many of whom believed themselves to be suddenly at the threshold of revolution, and were therefore unwilling to devote the years of their lives needed to affect widespread societal change. Though we know the end is to come, we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t believe it to be self-determined, swiftly approaching regardless of our work and intention. We see the fissures within global capitalism expanding, and, understanding our practice to be of great use in driving that expansion, we apply ourselves ceaselessly to a radical future, never relieving the pressure on power. This is happening, this will continue to happen; we are resolved. The only question is at what point you---as an artist or intellectual now bound to recognition and therefore institutions supportive of capitalism---will choose to become a part of it. What better time than now?

JOHN MILLER

THE NORMALIZATION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED You will stay home. You will plug in, turn on and zone out. You will lose yourself in Bones and Weeds, Skip out for beer during commercials, Because the normalization will not be televised. The normalization will not be televised. The normalization will not be brought to you by Intel In 4 parts without commercial interruptions. The normalization will not show you pictures of Colin Powell blowing a bugle and leading a charge by Robert M. Gates and General David Petraeus to eat sushi confiscated from a Harlem co-op. The normalization will not be televised. The normalization will not be brought to you by American Idol and will not star Wendy Raquel Robinson and Charlie Sheen or Eva Longoria Parker or Dora the Explorer. 27

The normalization will not give your mouth sex appeal. The normalization will not reveal the goddess in you. The normalization will not make you look five pounds thinner, because the normalization will not be televised. There will be no pictures of you and Alex Rodriguez pushing that shopping cart down the block on a dead run, or trying to slide that plasma television into the family SUV. Fox will not predict the winner at 8:32 and report from 29 districts. The normalization will not be televised. There will be pictures of pigs shooting down Sean Bell in the instant replay.

JOHN MILLER

There will be pictures of pigs shooting down Sean Bell in the instant replay. There will be no pictures of Charlie Rangel being run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process. There will be no slow motion or still life of O.J. Simpson strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and 28

Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving For just the proper occasion. Smallville, Springfield, and Chilton Preparatory School will not be more relevant, but viewers will still wait see if Brad finally gets down with Leslie on the Young and the Restless because people will not be in the street looking for a brighter day. The normalization will not be televised. There will be no highlights on the eleven oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;clock news and no pictures of metrosexuals and Michelle Obama blowing her nose. The theme song will not be written by Bryan Adams, Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Katy Perry, Rihanna, Eminem, or Enrique Iglesias. The normalization will not be televised.

from the Nasonex bee, the Geico caveman, or the AFLAC duck.

JOHN MILLER

The normalization will not be right back after a message

You will not have to worry about singing mops, blue M&Ms, or scrubbing bubbles in your toilet bowl.

The normalization will not go better with Coke. The normalization will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath. The normalization will not put you in the driverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s seat. The normalization will not be televised, will not be televised, will not be televised, will not be televised. The normalization will not be re-run today and tomorrow; The normalization will be online.

JOHN MILLER

Adapted from Gil Scott-Heronâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, 1970

CLÉMENCE DE MONTGOLFIER + NIKI KORTH

A MANIFESTO INTERVIEW: Q&A 1.) Could a Manifesto exist without words? What would this look like? What would it sound like?

a dog barking a trumpet a cry a klaxon ? Jimi Hendrixâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Star Spangled Banner Daft Punk Sometimes I feel like an art piece is in itself a manifesto when it is really strong and clear; also some electronic music pieces feel like Manifestoes. It feels like it expresses a statement when they are self-sufficient and radical. They become independent. 2.) Could a Manifesto be about Love, or Telepathy, or Magic?

Insofar as these are attainable, I believe that a Manifesto could cover these topics. I believe such Manifestoes would also overcome the seeming necessity of arrogance and self-righteousness with which they are commonly plagued and would enable them to be more declarations of universal inclusivity. These would be the primordial Manifestoes from which our present existence is derived, the illusory place of origin that we invent in order to make sense for our present state. They would further enact safeguards against abuse and secure a future in which playful memory allows us to protect our humanity. 3.) What do we want from a Manifesto? To change the world? Proclaim the self? Glory? Feedback? 33

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It is difficult to approach the topic of what ‘we’ want from a Manifesto without first discerning who or what ‘we’ are. Perhaps this is the whole idea of composing one - a proclamation of self in many ways, but perhaps more a declaration of self whose greatest success is merely identifying, in words, the contours and boarders of the self writing it. It is very different if it is a group of drunk teenagers writing a Manifesto because it seems to be a gesture that authenticates their alienation from the rest of the world, outside of a small group of their peers whose company they enjoy because it offers some level of intellectual and pleasurable stimulation they cannot find with other peer groups. But obviously the desire behind the Manifesto is different if one is writing one for public viewing of some kind, whether anonymous or not, in some setting in which larger numbers of less-informed individuals consent to take the time to read it. I think that much of the motivation is about Glory, but in that way in which we pretend that it is not, the whole social fabric around it may pretend, and construct ridiculous, elaborate customs around ensuring that it appear not to be about such a pompous, potentially-liberating, affirmation of one’s purpose or potential in the world. I think that many problems would be solved if they were more about feedback, if they were able to be more intelligent in the sense of being able to vary its state or action in response to varying situations, varying requirements, and past experience, rather than trying in vain to bring change ‘only from within’. 4.) What do you think a person our age in China thinks when they hear the word ‘Manifesto’?

Maybe they think about Mao’s Red Book? Communism is fairly idealist and revolutionary. This is where revolution starts to smell bad and turns

into authoritarianism. But can we still say that China is communist? Maybe what is gone of China is idealism and what is left of it is authority? I wonder how conscious of your own indoctrination you are able to be when you have been indoctrinated forever. It’s like children raised by cults or by the Amish. Or to a not-so-larger extent, it’s just like the rest of us. So the question turns into, how conscious are we of our own indoctrination? Is art an indoctrination? 5.) Is it appropriate that I began the previous question/sentence with the words ‘what do you think’? Why or why not? How would it be different if the word ‘China’ was replaced with ‘the Middle East’?

If it was ‘the Middle East’, then the conversation would be highly explosive, because, well, we DO directly feel threatened by those countries, and since 9/11 it feels more and more like a cold war going on there (pretty hot in the USA actually). And in France especially today it is very obvious. I think The French government thinks it should have control over Islamic French people and show its authority upon them, as an extent to the Middle East, because they fear they will loose their power if they don’t. It’s a politic based on fear, and as Jenny Holzer wrote, fear feeds on fear, and it is a

CLÉMENCE DE MONTGOLFIER + NIKI KORTH

I believe it is appropriate in terms of commonly accepted behaviors and opinions, maybe because China is far away enough from our culture in a sense so that we feel concerned or threatened or worried about the people there. Which sounds very selfish, but it is selfish, and I believe that if we - western global culture, are not directly threatened by other cultures (political, economical, sociological), we will never act first, because we usually act to protect ourselves (our power) and in our best personal interest. Worrying about others is counter-productive in a liberal economy.

very elegant weapon. 6.) Is it problematic that the previous question includes the identification of a speaking subject, an ‘I’? Do you suppose that this rarely occurs or appears in a Manifesto?

On the contrary, I believe a manifesto is all about the I, and the affirmation of the self, its claims and its being-to-the-world. The I might be a group of course, and the larger the group is, the more the I becomes powerful and real.

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7.) Do we need to define what we want and what we claim to be a group? Do we even need to want and claim anything?

It seems that the conventional understanding of human evolution would state that it is a biological necessity to want and claim things, since this is an extension of the basic act of seeking food and sustenance through which life can be maintained. I obviously say this from a more philosophical than scientific point of view, and wish to challenge this idea but lack the critical vocabulary. Since wanting, claiming, and needing are all very different concepts it is difficult to discern how we should approach these inevitabilities and the extent to which they are composed as such, within the prospect of ‘grouping’. I prefer to see groups as collections of activity rather than collections of individuals overseeing possessions, and think that it is much more functional to see groups, even those one is a part of, in light of how they appear from outside in order to prevent this more materialist conception from taking hold in my imagination. In chemistry a group is understood as a combination of atoms that have a recognizable identity in a number of compounds - thus they are collections of disparate components that come together in a certain, consistent way that one is able to apprehend when found amidst different combinations over time. This is obviously different

than what we are talking about since in such a situation, the autonomy and agency of the atoms is not much cause for concern. It seems that with the arts, the symptom of the Manifesto is like the atoms attempting to assert themselves against the classification the expository media performs. The question then becomes one of competing techniques of measurement and prediction, and I do not believe that we will get very far if we seek only to classify ourselves on the level of the properties we wish to acquire, but instead should approach the discernment of the picture in terms of the interactions between us. 8.) How are Manifestoes juvenile? Why don’t people write them alone?

9.) What about the ironical Manifestoes? Is this one ? Can you try to write ideas for a Manifesto that would take effect in the case where Aliens would come to planet Earth?

CLÉMENCE DE MONTGOLFIER + NIKI KORTH

Well, I think Marinetti wrote the Futurist Manifesto by himself and then found a bunch of his friends to sign it, right ? I believe that Manifestoes are juvenile when they are the expression of an egotistic desire to be recognized, just like when a child yells and cries to get what he wants or to be payed attention to when adults don’t consider him the center of the universe anymore. Discovering that your self is living among other selves is supposed to be the basis of the construction of identity; otherwise you become a tyrant. I was always fascinated by the obviously childish characteristics of some famous tyrants, and their inability to deal with anger, their need for power and getting everything they could demand. To me, it is just like a child yelling to get a toy. And some children can be very cruel too. This all sounds like a real pathology! Anyhow maybe Manifestoes can be juvenile when they are naive as well. It sounds nicer but maybe naive can also be dangerous (get manipulated, or not being aware).

CLÉMENCE DE MONTGOLFIER + NIKI KORTH

I think that this document definitely has the possibility to be perceived as an ironic Manifesto, especially in the idea of feigning ignorance as well as being deliberately contrary - and it does contain many proclamations. But they are more wishes than demands, which is a different form of communicating want or desire, so I would say that in this context (which will take many forms), it is debatable, and that the debate is perhaps more interesting than answering this element of the question any more decisively.

Generally, it seems that the ironical ones are more successful in the sense of being inviting to laughter and absurdity - which is why thinking of the Manifesto composed in response to Earth’s first contact with Aliens is fascinating... Some ideas are: there would have to be a huge, incredibly interesting meeting of various people from different disciplines/backgrounds/life situations: botanists, dancers, circus performers, politicians, surgeons, individuals with ‘non-standard’ sensory perception (blind, deaf, physically handicapped, autistic, etc.), religious leaders, kindergarten teachers, filmmakers, tailors, plumbers, like a Noah’s Arc of professional expertise - they would all have to be together or somehow in communication in order to figure out how to best guide the world into safety and productively coming to understand these Aliens. It would be best to proceed on the assumption that they are non-violent, but cautiously so that we are not taken advantage of - innocent until proven guilty (which evokes a wholly different tone than I intended...), and that they very likely have completely different ways of communicating and that we must be very open-minded to cognitive stretches that may leave us bewildered. ‘Think of how different the world outside of your Mother’s womb must have appeared when you first came upon it - if there hadn’t been anyone there to care for you, who was looking to learn as much from you as he or she or they were

to also teach you, you would never have made it to this day. And now you cannot remember this moment. We must think of this as we share our world with these beings that are new to us. Perhaps someday we will be lucky enough to come upon their world, but for now we must [...]’ and then the laser guns suddenly emerge from the bushes and vanquish the young idealist standing at the podium, and an invisible gas washes over the land and all human and animal life dies... But the bodies remain alive, the zombie genre quickly crosses over into the science fiction landscape, the bodies are kept ‘functioning’ but the spirit is gone. The body is willing but the flesh is weak - if only they had brought the young cinematographers to the table for discussion - we could have been saved... 10.) If a Manifesto were a food, what would it taste like?

11.) Could a non-dogmatic Manifesto possibly emerge in the quasi-military social structure of a starship crew? Could space travelers/space travel be the antidote to the restless, revolutionaryfocused (and thereby unfocused) energy of our generation?

I think people write non-dogmatic manifestoes when they have the ability to be rebellious, which is, if you have enough money to not be constrained by labor, if you have enough education to develop a critical thinking, if you have enough other people to share and develop your rebellious ideas with. So I don’t think a Manifesto could be written on a starship crew, unless some of the members decide to prepare a coup against their leader and take over the galaxy or something. But I don’t know

CLÉMENCE DE MONTGOLFIER + NIKI KORTH

I would say like spicy Indian food; at first it is delicious and new, and the more you eat it the more you realize it burns like hell, then you can’t taste anything anymore, and then you’re just hurt (sweat, stomach aches, regrets).

CLÉMENCE DE MONTGOLFIER + NIKI KORTH 40

why I have the feeling that a Manifesto is more a show-off coming from a group of intellectuals more than a practical recipe on how to make revolution. When an armed rebellion against the dominating power really happens, claiming beforehand that’s its going to happen is very likely to make it be crushed by this very power. I think the coming of time-travelers would provoke world riots ! because people wouldn’t agree on what to do with it, and which decisions to make about such a huge discovery which would change everything we know. Probably some big firm would want to have the monopoly of time-travel formulas and devices (time-travel would then be the privilege of a financially eligible elite, at least for a couple hundred years). Then the UNO would have to write a universal law in order to prevent people from changing things in the past, and revealing things from the future to past people (well, if we discovered space-travelers they wouldn’t have respected this law for sure). Then the USA would send CIA agents back in time to undo the Intafada in Palestine. So I think it would be a nightmare because we would have no means to know if the present would have been changed at all, and maybe in this case, everything that would happen could be somebody’s will and fault. A world without chance ? 12.) What is the worst Manifesto you can think of / find out about?

Searching for the worst Manifesto is more difficult than expected, it would likely come from a terribly violent, close-minded type of group that is looking to destroy the entire concept of civil liberties and wreak havoc, violence, and rape on huge populations of people, in the name of advancement of some ideal of hatred that promotes the agents behind the Manifesto as the most [...] members of the population. Maybe this is too obvious, perhaps it would be the subtle Manifesto of subcounscious marketing techniques, the one stating that ‘we are committed to controlling every node of pleasure in

the minds of our clients in order that we craft them into docile lab rats who, under our invisible tutelage, enable us to remove humanity from their corporeal manifestations and place them in a virtual world in which we may test and observe them so as to discover each day more precisely how we may control them and squeeze out every drop of their individual personality in order to learn more of what the Human is in order to keep this information away from them and reprogram them into serving us, so that every cell in their body is devoted to servicing our every whim, but they remain ignorant of it.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

13.) How does the coming-together of a Manifesto compare to the act of conception with human beings? What exactly is the intercourse that brings the Manifesto into being?

Maybe impulse and passion is what brings people to write Manifestoes. Can you say you can have beergoggles when writing a manifesto as well? There is definitely here something of a common will to plan

CLĂ&#x2030;MENCE DE MONTGOLFIER + NIKI KORTH

So this may be rather vague, but in trying to answer this question it was interesting just searching through all the various Manifestoes that emerge in Google. There are many more Manifestoes promoting scientific responsibility than those that promote a similar level of accountability in the Arts. While this does not tell us whether or not one is more common than the other, since what we see immediately is that the scientific ones are simply more popular and visited more often than the others, I would not be surprised if this was the case. Scientists and philosophers following WWII felt more responsible for the atomic bomb than artists, after all, and at first this seems to make sense. And I suppose that is the best conclusion to this response: the Manifesto stating that artists should not approach these terrains, have no value or purpose there, would have to be in the group of worst Manifestoes imaginable.

a common project. But I see it more as related to desire, maybe the need to seduce, maybe strategies to get what you want, maybe the self-satisfaction of obtaining what you were lusting for. Or maybe a desire to go beyond the personal interests and reach a common interest, and seeing yourself through the other â&#x20AC;&#x201C; or being mirrored ?

CLĂ&#x2030;MENCE DE MONTGOLFIER + NIKI KORTH

14.) Why are manifestoes not written in the art world when they are the most needed? Like today in France, when censorship is getting harder, and the government is getting stronger, why does art feel like it is getting more docile in the public sphere? Are we that afraid?

Is it because not everyone can agree? Or because no one wants to admit to others that they are afraid, due to the fear that stating this could make one more vulnerable? I am not all that familiar with the specific situation in France, but It seems like it has much to do with money - when one is at the mercy of where they receive their supportive resources and feels little agency due to this dependence, it seems inevitable that they will take less risks in order to protect what little they have. But isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t this why humans and animals began living in groups, in order to progress through the ability to take greater risks because one is not alone? If we are that afraid I think it is all the more reason to come together, at least discursively, and disengage from the isolation and segmentation that comes with lofty notions of The Art World being a mirror-world Mount Olympus. It is more liberating to play against the gods, or to play in front of them in a manner they are not capable of (since with mortality comes a passion that cannot be understood within eternity) than to attempt to play with them strictly according to their rules. But if art has become completely domesticated, then it is time to ask the housewives. 15.) Is there a different conception of a Manifesto

in France than in America?

I don’t think so. Actually I do not really know how a Manifesto is conceived in America - the French conception of it would be: ‘a declaration of a group stating their claim’; to write a Manifesto is also performative, in the sense that it often makes effective the existence of the group writing it; by proclaiming what it wants, the group proclaims its existence to the world. What comes to mind as a European is the artistic avant-gardes of the 20th century, and also it has a taste of revolution and struggle for freedom, utopia, and idealism. 16.) Isn’t the very idea of a Manifesto obsolete?

CLÉMENCE DE MONTGOLFIER + NIKI KORTH

How can an idea be obsolete? Or I suppose it is different for something to be an a idea ‘of something’ - in any case, the historical idea is more democratic than it seems to be given credit for, in the sense that it is a public declaration usually made in order to incur or provoke support, although it is a declaration of goals, tracks, policies, various things that are restrictive insofar as they offer structure. I do not think that these ideas are obsolete, it just seems that they have been diluted today and appear under other names, such as mission statements, narrative proposals (to receive funding), and business plans. But all of these require a language without passion, a formal register that does not allow the condemnations that color the Manifesto such that it is more viscerally descriptive and caters to the imagination. Maybe not diluted so much as displaced. As a transitive verb ‘obsolete’ would mean to bring a product or idea to no longer be used by replacing it with something new. If this has happened, who was responsible, or is it natural, as it is to grow old and fall into disuse? 17.) Why are young artists like us so not-political nowadays?

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It is interesting that you say ‘not-political’ instead of ‘non-political’. ‘Non-’ would suggest more of an effort to be counter-political (and what would this be, ‘purely aesthetic’, only to be perceived and not to be ‘apprehended’, but then the noun came to mean a set of principles underlying and guiding, thereby becoming political insofar as it is strategic.) But not-political sounds so much more apathetic, which I think is more accurate. Not many young artists are expressing a vehemence toward ‘the political’, they just aren’t addressing it at all. It seems like this is because the political playing field is the marketplace to which we feel ourselves to be at mercy. In order to be ‘successful’ we are taught that we must leave politics to the curators and critics who are also at the mercy of the market or the academic system that processes and inscribes the history of our political relevance. So I do think that some of it has to do with laziness, as well as a narcissism that believes that it is better to just indulge and explore oneself as much as possible in order to exploit all these notions and scents of individual genius that they need in order to typify the type of artist to be carried through history. I think in order to be political we need to start thinking of the history of infrastructural changes, like the adoption of the metric system and the building of railroads and highway systems, park regulations and public gardens and farms, etc., as a form of art in line with impressionism, surrealism, fluxus, neorealist film, etc. And with the Internet maybe this is possible? Of course I think that has a lot to do with the notpoliticalness too, the opportunities it proposes are most often seized in the form of making a website of themselves and their work, with a requisite CV and high-resolution images of their work and incredibly brief statement. Then the pressure becomes how to best represent oneself on this incredibly small scale, so that maybe people will spend 7 minutes looking at it and then move

on. But we could be using these spaces to organize enormous undertakings that would better the world’s ability for creative expression, and produce works through it, and in so doing compensate for what our respective governments are not doing, or counteract what they are. 18.) How does one ‘obey’ a Manifesto? Is this necessary for a Manifesto to be a true Manifesto?

That’s a good question. My answer to the second one would be: NO. And here we could discuss about how to define the truth of a statement. Is true REAL or is true RIGHT? How can we know what’s right for real? Haha! No answer to that. About Obeying, I think the people writing them try to live by their rules, but I guess the main way to ‘obey’ is activism, and the fight to turn your Manifesto into effective actions.

I would ask for there to be some way for things to be done (i.e., for foodstuffs to be prepared and made distributable to the population, for creativity to be fostered and ‘progress’ to be maintained in a way that is humane rather than just vaguely striving to attain material wealth, for people to interact and have pleasure in work, but not in a manipulative way), without a money economy. I believe that we have outgrown it, that it no longer fits with the way that people live and these various industries function. It was a remarkable step in the evolution of human consciousness when the money economy eclipsed the bartering economy, when the perceived unanimity and universal translatability of a third party arbiter of value enabled exchange, of both services and products (and to which should labor belong?), to occur with more ease and precision and on a much larger scale.

CLÉMENCE DE MONTGOLFIER + NIKI KORTH

19.) Today, if you could ask for anything in the world what would it be?

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But there always had to be an image of the King on the coins? Or is this too cynical, could it have been possible without this? Now it is difficult to imagine a world without money, but already the exchange of physical currency is far less common. In any case, in answering this I also realize that, after this, what I want more than anything is an ability to communicate more clearly and effectively, at the drop of a hat, with a remarkable eloquence that is both playful, humorous, and thought-provoking, one that is nearly effortless and seems to drip from my lips and pen (or, at times, a keyboard). But actually, if I were to have this I would likely lose a lot of other things, the struggle is important after all. But does the current state create a more difficult, strenuous or tenuous struggle for the reader, listener, interviewer? I do not know, but maybe what I want is for struggle to be better understood. I do think we need it, but it just doesn’t need to be violent, and we just need to be open to the amount of effort and open-mindedness it requires for conflicts to be resolved once they are fully articulated and understood (which may be an impossible moment anyway), to be comfortable with change and willing to take efforts to achieve it and figure out what the best changes are for as many as possible to be happy and satisfied with existence, and to design frameworks through which the future will be safe-guarded. 20.) Are Manifestoes inevitably political, or is it always pretend?

I don’t think a Manifesto is always pretend; I think people believe in what they say/write, and I think they think they’re right; But I think I’m right too in a way, so, my opinions might be as wrong as theirs. I think writing a Manifesto is a gesture that is in essence political, in the sense of ‘politic’ being the whole of human relations in their structure, and how these structures fabricate the world.

21.) If you were to be a tyrant, what type of tyrant would you be?

1.) The Tyrant who exhausts the corporeal storehouses of a huge percentage of the population (i.e., by starving them through excessive taxation or seizure of property or fighting large-scale wars and killing a large number of the subjects off). 2.) The Tyrant who seeks to control the thoughts and daily life activities of all of his subjects; for various reasons not limited to: megalomania, extreme paranoia, insanity, [...]. This one would take extreme efforts in maintaining surveillance (or at least the constant possibility of it), strict censorship, etc. 3.) The Tyrant who provokes and provides structural support for internal war against/elimination of a subset of his population. In reality, of course, it seems every tyrant is

CLĂ&#x2030;MENCE DE MONTGOLFIER + NIKI KORTH

I cannot tell is you are asking what I would do were I to be a tyrant, or what class of tyrant I would fall into if I had been born into a tyrannical disposition. It is a hard question to answer, especially since I have always been quite counter to the entire concept of tyranny. And this is not only in the sense of disliking tyrants and disapproving what they do. As a matter of fact, I have always found great stress in my difficulty in expressing anything beyond the equator of the spherical representation of the dichotomy of tyranny and freedom if it were to be illustrated topographically and made a point on such a globe. But what would the polar opposite be? And what would be found in between? While I am not sure if freedom is its opposite (and maybe the lesson here is that there are no true opposites..), I continue to stray further from your question. In efforts to return there, I will change my destination coordinates to where I first began fleeing the course - what are the different classes of tyrants?:

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a combination of all of these. Interestingly, it was Peter Zenger’s publishing of accusations that implied that Governor Cosby, appointed as royal governor of the colony of New York in 1732, was a tyrant that perpetuated the trial that eventually established the first precedent to the freedom of the press in the American colonies. Criticism of the government become approvable and free of the risk of censorship so long as it was ‘supported by truth and stated without malice’. In any case, if I somehow was a tyrant I would at least keep everyone alive and well-fed, but would probably be more like the tyrannical elite of ancient Greece, forcing talented individuals to entertain myself and my guests with song, dance, comedy, etc. I would also force them to entertain ‘the Masses’ and encourage them all to work together to entertain each other. I would also force scientists to work with artists to ensure that their inventions cater to the hearts of the population and do not threaten their wellbeing, and would require everyone to dance together at least three nights per week. I suppose this would place me somewhere in between the first two classes of tyrants I describe above. 22.) If you would write a Manifesto what would it be about?

I would write something about how we all need to be concerned about how the internet and digital media technologies are affecting children, and from that something about ‘leveling the playing-field’ of available technology for more impoverished parts of the world. But not in the sense that we should just throw computers all over the place, but that it needs to be taken very seriously and carefully and seen as a new species of communication whose introduction into new, more ubiquitous environments, should be tended to in a manner that is mindful of spiritual and cultural difference in the moral parameters of representation. Then something about how social media technology and smart technology could destroy

the world and take away the future of childhood, replacing it with an infantilism that lasts far beyond middle-age, removing the whole conceptual constellation of glory, love, camaraderie, joy, intellectual stimulation, [...], and replacing it with complacent neutralization, a larger majority being mostly ‘happy’ more of the time... And then I would propose an idea about how this could be fixed or avoided, or the steps to be taken in figuring out the problem. 23.) Can a single person write a Manifesto by himself? Is it still valid?

By himself, no; by herself, yes.

24.) How does a Manifesto compare to a spectacle?

Manifestum : plain, apparent, evident, manifest In French a demonstration is called a “manifestation” and a “manifestation divine” is a sign revealing obviously the presence of God. I think to write a Manifesto is a grand gesture, and it is very spectacular in itself, it is meant to impress in a way, to show off, to proclaim, it is full of drama. And for a matter of fact, the level of language used is often very pompous. If you write a Manifesto you place yourself in the center of your own revolution, and you are your own hero, and you create a status for yourself, as if you exist more than other people because of this

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Ha! [...] As much as I want to say that it would be valid, it does not seem to be the case, unless one looks at the term more loosely as simply a public declaration of one’s aims, in which case it seems that MySpace and Facebook profiles could be understood as Manifestoes, and then we would see the problem completely differently, or would realize that the problem is far more ubiquitous than we thought.

status. I wonder who people address when writing a Manifesto. The government? The nation? everyone? their friends? But who’s listening? History? And yet History is made by their governments, which make Manifestoes look like naive utopian rebellions, that were pointless, but sweet, like a kitten trying to bite you. So writing a Manifesto might still make a better point than not writing a Manifesto after all.

September 2010

CLÉMENCE DE MONTGOLFIER + NIKI KORTH

www.thebigconversationspace.org

Niki Korth & Clémence de Montgolfier are two young artists living in San Francisco and Paris. Together they are building The Big Conversation Space, an open discursive platform, taking various formats such as a website, printed matter, drawings, questionnaires, film or sound-objects, all being conversation-based. They speak English, French, German, some Spanish, Klingon, or anything else. What would you like to have a conversation about?

NELS NELSON + ASH HOLWELL

Space Camp SHELTER FOR EVERYONE FILL EMPTY BUILDINGS STOP SPECULATION Space Camp was a Unitary Urbanism experiment in Rotterdam Zuid from 3 November 2009 - 1 October 2010. Under liberal Dutch squatting law (legal tenant rights for occupants of a building that was empty for at least 12 months preceding), an early twentieth-century row house, â&#x2030;&#x2C6;600 square meters, was cracked, renovated, and reopened as a free residence. The object formed behavior by automating useful tasks (shelter, water, warmth), thus liberating participants from static society. There were as many as nine simultaneous long-term participants and scores of short-term participants. The experiment finished when the Anti-Squat Law was signed into action by the Queen of the Netherlands.

NELS NELSON + ASH HOLWELL

ELI EPSTEIN DEUTSCH

(Rethinking Synthesis) A Call To Really Invent Socialist Realism, on the Anniversary of Asger Jorn: One can identify only accidentally with a poor Brooklynite buying fish. One can identify only accidentally.... One must only identify with the accident of buying fish. With the accidental Brooklyn of fish-buying and identity. The identity of fish and the identity of buying. Can each be properly identified? With...what? Brooklynites, countrymen, fish, we must strive for the total unity of identity and accident. With the total marketization of Brooklyn we must buy identities like fish to proclaim them an accident. Unos Dos Tres Fulminates against Yi Er San Hieroglyphs will kick the shit out of Cyrillic Ideograms wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know what hit them With the total marketization of Babel we must make all textual systems fight to the death in Brooklyn Think of the rarefied European thought systems that fed Marx and then think of what it would be like

to be a poor peasant in Brooklyn told that even the accident of buying fish is an identification, an assertion of identity. Can you identify with this? You must, and it will raise a red flag. We must, or it will raise the death of Brooklyn Re: the death of Babylon. A grave accident. A fish graveyard. A transcendental accident that makes a unity of buying and identity. A Re-Babelization of buying that makes the market into poetry A re-concretization of transcendence that makes poetry into fish Ich Ni San will bitch-slap Aleph Gimmel Hay

ELI EPSTEIN DEUTSCH

Marx will grow leery

Of Concrete Utopia Teach a fish to fish, we proclaim. And you will have fish for life

ABIGAIL COHEN

HEADGARDEN: PONTIFICATIONS A compilation of thoughts on my body and its surrounding bodies. All accompanying footnotes are based on a synthesis of my own and common knowledge—definitions are derived from a synthesis of my own internal electro-chemical connections and my external fiber-optic prosthesis-brain. Please be sensitive to changes in type-face. MOTHER EARTH When Humanity evolved the ability to wonder, to ask questions of the phenomena he observed in daily existence, she simultaneously developed the need to explain. A child looked up at her father and asked, “Where was I before I was here?” and in a panic, for this was a question to which he had no answer, he tried to explain the cause of such a mysterious but unwavering occurrence of nature using only analogies drawn from his experience. He knew where she came from physically when she was finished growing inside his mate, but he had no knowledge of how she got there, or what forces made her come to look like she did. Clans grew to develop complex histories of the universe based on what they believed to be probable causes for us. They extracted from what they experienced to be true. A new life greets the tribe only after it has been carried and cared for by a woman. To a wise elder in the community, it made sense, then, that the earth, the life-giving force responsible for our existence, must be our mother. Most anthropological study leads us to believe that the earliest forms of religion based themselves around the principle that there existed spirits or forces more powerful than we that caused the 61

ABIGAIL COHEN

sky to be blue on a clear day and allowed for the succession of seasons and the falling of rain. There must be a reason that the roots soak up the water and the stalks grow tall and green. Subsequently, through the cycle of inquiry and exploration in which we became so entrenched, we discovered these plants need water, which they transport up their xylem, to produce carbon-based nutrients, photosynthates,1 which they pump down their phloem. We learned that water makes possible the conversion of those carbon-based molecules

1 Photosynthate- (fō’tō-sĭn’thāt) n. A chemical product of photosynthesis*. * Photosynthesis (from the Greek φώτο- [photo-], “light,” and σύνθεσις [synthesis], “putting together”, “composition”) is a process that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight.[1] Photosynthesis occurs in plants, algae, and many species of bacteria, but not in archaea. Photosynthetic organisms are called photoautotrophs, since they can create their own food. In plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, photosynthesis uses carbon dioxide and water, releasing oxygen as a waste product. Photosynthesis is vital for life on Earth. As well as maintaining the normal level of oxygen in the atmosphere, nearly all life either depends on it directly as a source of energy, or indirectly as the ultimate source of the energy in their food[2] (the exceptions are chemoautotrophs that live in rocks or around deep sea hydrothermal vents). The rate of energy capture by photosynthesis is immense, approximately 100 terawatts:[3] which is about six times larger than the power consumption of human civilization.[4] As well as energy, photosynthesis is also the source of the carbon in all the organic compounds within organisms’ bodies. In all, photosynthetic organisms convert around 100,000,000,000 tonnes of carbon into biomass per year.[5] Although photosynthesis can happen in different ways in different species, some features are always the same. For example, the process always begins when energy from light is absorbed by proteins called photosynthetic reaction centers that contain chlorophylls. In plants, these proteins are held inside organelles called chloroplasts, while in bacteria they are embedded in the plasma membrane. Some of the light energy gathered by chlorophylls is stored in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). The rest of the energy is used to remove electrons from a substance such as water. These electrons are then used in the reactions that turn carbon dioxide into organic compounds. In plants, algae and cyanobacteria, this is done by a sequence of reactions called the Calvin cycle, but different sets of reactions are found in some bacteria, such as the reverse Krebs cycle in Chlorobium. Many photosynthetic organisms have adaptations that concentrate or store carbon

into the thick, pasty sugars, so integral in our life force that all animals must consume them to survive. We learned that the tiny building blocks, cells, that make up our own bodies require some carbon-input to perform the necessary processes involved in living and growing and thinking and breathing and walking and sleeping and even the act of eating, itself.2 We even began to see that we are made of the same basic structures that come together to form other animals,3 some of whom we eat for the ready-made complex structures, amino acids, which are easier to consume than put together ourselves, and plants for their starches, physically impossible for our bodies to synthesize.4 We learned that some of the things we require are un-synthesizable for all beings, some metals and minerals that came from the earth itself, or rather, that came from the materials that gathered themselves together to dioxide. This helps reduce a wasteful process called photorespiration that can consume part of the sugar produced during photosynthesis. 2 Approximately 10% of a personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s caloric intake is necessary for fueling digestion and absorbing nutrients.

4 Both amino acids (Amino acids are molecules containing an amine group, a carboxylic acid group and a side chain that varies between different amino acids.) and starches (Starch or amylum is a carbohydrate consisting of a large number of glucose units joined together by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by all green plants as an energy store. It is the most important carbohydrate in the human diet and is contained in such staple foods as potatoes, wheat, maize (corn), rice, and cassava)) are made primarily of aforementioned carbon backbones.

ABIGAIL COHEN

3 Carbon forms the backbone of biology for all life on Earth. Complex molecules are made up of carbon bonded with other elements, especially oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, and carbon is able to bond with all of these because of its four valence electrons. It is often assumed in astrobiology that if life exists somewhere else in the universe, it will also be carbon based. This assumption is referred to by critics as carbon chauvinism.

form Earth, herself.5 Above all, we learned that the simplest of these structures must be made from something still smaller, which merely perpetuated our ongoing quest to deconstruct and dissect through a cascading positive feedback mechanism.6

EARTHBODY I breathe in Oxygen, which goes into my blood stream and is subsequently carried to the outer reaches of my corpus. Every living cell of my body uses this oxygen to consume the carbohydrates I have ingested, releasing the chemical energy stored within the bonds of these sugars. As I break bonds between carbon atoms from which these carbohydrates are derived, I unlock the sun’s energy that has been stored therein by plant producers. As I oxidize these carbon bonds, I slowly release carbon dioxide into my blood stream. As the CO2 builds up in my blood, it reacts with the water solvent, forming Carboxylic Acid, which dissociates into Carbonate and Bicarbonate and Hydrogen ions. In

ABIGAIL COHEN

5 The most abundant inorganic compound in a living thing is water.

65% of the human body is made up of oxygen, due to the fact that water contains oxygen and water makes up most of the human body about 19% is carbon, which is in almost everything on earth 9.7% is hydrogen, again due to water 3.2% is nitrogen because of it’s relative abundance in proteins, and it is in the lungs 1.8% is calcium, found in bones teeth, the nervous system and muscles 6 Positive feedback mechanisms are designed to accelerate or enhance the output created by a stimulus that has already been activated. Unlike negative feedback mechanisms that initiate to maintain or regulate physiological functions within a set and narrow range, the positive feedback mechanisms are designed to push levels out of normal ranges. To achieve this purpose, a series of events initiates a cascading process that builds to increase the effect of the stimulus. This process can be beneficial but is rarely used by the body due to risks of the acceleration’s becoming uncontrollable.

effect, the buildup of carbon dioxide in my blood makes it more corrosive, or acidic. I breath out. My blood’s pH is brought back to a level at which my cells can function properly.7 The homeostatic process8 of blood buffering, or my body’s ability to regulate the acidity of my blood stream, enables me to protect myself against sudden changes in my internal environment, thereby permitting a steady-state within my skin’s boundaries.

8 Homeostasis (from Greek: ὅμοιος, homoios, “similar”; and ἵστημι, histēmi, “standing still”; defined by Claude Bernard and later by Walter Bradford Cannon in 1929 + 1932[1]) is the property of a system, either open or closed, that regulates its internal environment and tends to maintain a stable, constant condition. Typically used to refer to a living organism, the concept came from that of milieu interieur that was created by Claude Bernard and published in 1865. Multiple dynamic equilibrium adjustment and regulation mechanisms make homeostasis possible.

ABIGAIL COHEN

7 Blood pH is regulated to stay within the narrow range of 7.35 to 7.45, making it slightly alkaline.[8][9] Blood that has a pH below 7.35 is too acidic, whereas blood pH above 7.45 is too alkaline. Blood pH, partial pressure of oxygen (pO2), partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2), and HCO3 are carefully regulated by a number of homeostatic mechanisms, which exert their influence principally through the respiratory system and the urinary system in order to control the acid-base balance and respiration. An arterial blood gas will measure these. Plasma also circulates hormones transmitting their messages to various tissues. The list of normal reference ranges for various blood electrolytes is extensive. Bones are especially affected by blood pH as they tend to be used as a mineral source for pH buffering. The bicarbonate buffering system is especially key, as carbon dioxide (CO2) can be shifted through carbonic acid (H2CO3) to hydrogen ions and bicarbonate (HCO3-) as shown below:

BODY OF WATER There is Blood in the Ocean.

ABIGAIL COHEN

Plants on the earth’s surface conduct the sun’s energy, storing it in the carbon-carbon bonds that make up the backbones of the sugars they produce,9 which animals subsequently consume. They produce oxygen as a byproduct.10 This Oxygen is carried throughout the system by the atmosphere and to animals and plants that need it in order to consume sugar and obtain chemical energy.11 When they

9 Sugars are made by plants during photosynthesis, which takes place primarily in their leaves using the sun’s energy. Scientifically, sugar loosely refers to a number of carbohydrates, such as monosaccharides, disaccharides, or oligosaccharides. Monosaccharides are also called “simple sugars,” the most important being glucose. Almost all sugars have the formula CnH2nOn (n is between 3 and 7). Glucose has the molecular formula C6H12O6. The names of typical sugars end with “-ose,” as in “glucose”, “dextrose”, and “fructose”. Sometimes such words may also refer to any types of carbohydrates soluble in water. The acyclic mono- and disaccharides contain either aldehyde groups or ketone groups. These carbon-oxygen double bonds (C=O) are the reactive centers. All saccharides with more than one ring in their structure result from two or more monosaccharides joined by glycosidic bonds with the resultant loss of a molecule of water (H2O) per bond. Monosaccharides in a closed-chain form can form glycosidic bonds with other monosaccharides, creating disaccharides (such as sucrose) and polysaccharides (such as starch). Enzymes must hydrolyse or otherwise break these glycosidic bonds before such compounds become metabolised. After digestion and absorption. the principal monosaccharides present in the blood and internal tissues include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Many pentoses and hexoses can form ring structures. In these closed-chain forms, the aldehyde or ketone group remains unfree, so many of the reactions typical of these groups cannot occur. Glucose in solution exists mostly in the ring form at equilibrium, with less than 0.1% of the molecules in the open-chain form. 10 Photosynthetic organisms are photoautotrophs, which means that they are able to synthesize food directly from carbon dioxide using energy from light. However, not all organisms that use light as a source of energy carry out photosynthesis, since photoheterotrophs use organic compounds, rather than carbon dioxide, as a source of carbon.[2] In plants, algae and cyanobacteria, photosynthesis releases oxygen. This is called oxygenic photosynthesis. Although there are some differences between oxygenic photosynthesis in plants, algae and cyanobacteria, the overall process is quite similar in

consume, they release carbon dioxide, which is released into the atmosphere. This gas is taken up by the oceans: the largest Carbon sink12 is the ocean. As more of this carbon dioxide is picked up by the Earth’s oceans, the CO2 reacts with water, forming Carboxylic Acid, which dissociates into these organisms. Carbon dioxide is converted into sugars in a process called carbon fixation. Carbon fixation is a redox reaction, so photosynthesis needs to supply both a source of energy to drive this process, and the electrons needed to convert carbon dioxide into carbohydrate, which is a reduction reaction. In general outline, photosynthesis is the opposite of cellular respiration, where glucose and other compounds are oxidized to produce carbon dioxide, water, and release chemical energy. However, the two processes take place through a different sequence of chemical reactions and in different cellular compartments. The general equation for photosynthesis is therefore: 2n CO2 + 2n H2O + photons 2(CH2O)n + n O2 + 2n A Carbon dioxide + electron donor + light energy carbohydrate + oxygen + oxidized electron donor 11 Aerobic respiration requires oxygen in order to generate energy (ATP). Although carbohydrates, fats, and proteins can all be processed and consumed as reactant, it is the preferred method of pyruvate breakdown from glycolysis and requires that pyruvate enter the mitochondrion in order to be fully oxidized by the Krebs cycle. The product of this process is energy in the form of ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate), by substrate-level phosphorylation, NADH and FADH2. Simplified reaction: C6H12O6 (aq) + 6 O2 (g) 6 CO2 (g) + 6 H2O (l) ∆G = -2880 kJ per mole of C6H12O6

ABIGAIL COHEN

12 A carbon sink is a natural or artificial reservoir that accumulates and stores some carbon-containing chemical compound for an indefinite period. The main natural sinks are: • Absorption of carbon dioxide by the oceans via physicochemical and biological processes • Photosynthesis by terrestrial plants Natural sinks are typically much larger than artificial sinks. The main artificial sinks are: • Landfills • Carbon capture and storage proposals The process by which carbon sinks remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is known as carbon sequestration. Public awareness of the significance of CO2 sinks has grown since passage of the Kyoto Protocol, which promotes their use as a form of carbon offset.

Carbonate and Bicarbonate and Hydrogen Ions.13 In effect, the buildup of carbon dioxide in the ocean makes it more corrosive, or acidic.14 The ocean must breath out.

13.

ABIGAIL COHEN

*please note the similarities between the chemical equations in footnote 7 and note 13.

14 Although the natural absorption of CO2 by the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s oceans helps mitigate the climatic effects of anthropogenic emissions of CO2, it is believed that the resulting decrease in pH will have negative consequences, primarily for oceanic calcifying organisms. These span the food chain from autotrophs to heterotrophs and include organisms such as coccolithophores, corals, foraminifera, echinoderms, crustaceans and molluscs. As described above, under normal conditions, calcite and aragonite are stable in surface waters since the carbonate ion is at supersaturating concentrations. However, as ocean pH falls, so does the concentration of this ion, and when carbonate becomes undersaturated, structures made of calcium carbonate are vulnerable to dissolution. Even if there is no change in the rate of calcification, therefore, the rate of dissolution of calcareous material increases.[29] Research has already found that corals,[30][31][32] coccolithophore algae,[33][34][35][36] coralline algae,[37] foraminifera,[38] shellfish[39] and pteropods[2][40] experience reduced calcification or enhanced dissolution when exposed to elevated CO2. The Royal Society of London published a comprehensive overview of ocean acidification, and its potential consequences, in June 2005.[14] However, some studies have found different response to ocean acidification, with coccolithophore calcification and photosynthesis both increasing under elevated atmospheric pCO2,[41][42][43] an equal decline in primary production and calcification in response to elevated CO2[44] or the direction of the response varying between species.[45] Recent work examining a sediment core from the North Atlantic found that while the species composition of coccolithophorids has remained unchanged for the industrial period 1780 to 2004, the calcification of coccoliths has increased by up to 40% during the same time.[43] While the full ecological consequences of these changes in calcification are still uncertain, it appears likely that many calcifying species will be adversely affected. There is also

a suggestion that a decline in the coccolithophores may have secondary effects on climate change, by decreasing the Earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s albedo via their effects on oceanic cloud cover.[46] Aside from calcification, organisms may suffer other adverse effects, either directly as reproductive or physiological effects (e.g. CO2-induced acidification of body fluids, known as hypercapnia), or indirectly through negative impacts on food resources.[14] Ocean acidification may also force some organisms to reallocate resources away from feeding and reproduction in order to maintain internal cell pH (i.e. expenditure of extra energy to run proton pumps).[47] It has even been suggested that ocean acidification will alter the acoustic properties of seawater, allowing sound to propagate further, increasing ocean noise and impacting animals that use sound for echolocation or communication.[47] However, as with calcification, as yet there is not a full understanding of these processes in marine organisms or ecosystems.[48] Leaving aside direct biological effects, it is expected that ocean acidification in the future will lead to a significant decrease in the burial of carbonate sediments for several centuries, and even the dissolution of existing carbonate sediments.[49] This will cause an elevation of ocean alkalinity, leading to the enhancement of the ocean as a reservoir for CO2 with moderate (and potentially beneficial) implications for climate change as more CO2 leaves the atmosphere for the ocean.

ABIGAIL COHEN 69

JOE BLANKHOLM

A Sincere Act of Irony 1) Life is meaningless. Asking after its meaning reflects a profound misunderstanding. 2) Nothing anyone can assert has any ground, despite any claims to the contrary. All claims are mythically founded and viscerally settled upon. That is to say, every worldview, at bottom, is a question of aesthetics. This radical understanding of aesthetics little resembles its colloquial, castrated usage. 3) This claim has no ground, nor do any of the claims that follow. I present to you an aesthetic worldview for your visceral consumption, digestion, and defecation. At the moment of defecation it will share little with its original form and content. For this I forgive you in advance. My hope is only that its digestion might edify you. 4) The human is something that glorifies itself. It is the anthropos of anthropocentrism, and it has instrumentalized everything to a point that now it can no longer understand anything but instrumentalization. Its instrumental logic is all-consuming and cannot see an outside of itself. The human maximizes, though it is also irrational. The human is homo economicus, though it is also wasteful and incompetent. The human is only one way of understanding the human, and like every other understanding, it is incoherent. 5) The human is a passive system like any other passive system. The human is not an agent except where it is efficacious for the human to consider itself an agent. The human is more like a mountain than an agent, and the human is more like the earth than an agent. Its system acts upon it without consideration of its own borders and

acts in conjunction with other systems without consideration of their borders. It does not consider life or death. It is a passive system for which only vicissitudes are real because they are the necessary constituents of its systemhood. That is to say, not even vicissitudes are real, but if we are still to talk of a system, we will hang onto the convenience of thinking of them as real. 6) The system is passive as evolution is passive. All true forces are passive, and all active forces are conveniences. We will never relinquish conveniences, and in their inescapability, they are real. No truth is expressible without contradiction. 7) I imagine myself as separate from something that is not me. I imagine myself as a human. I imagine my mind as separate from other minds. I imagine myself as an individual. I am always ironic in this imagining, though I am sincere in my irony because I see no other way to face the world.

JOE BLANKHOLM

8) A careful historian can trace the germ of an idea through its stems and its leaves; a careful historian can trace an idea as it travels and bounds what it is possible to think. Despite revolutions, the human cannot think wholly anew. It is always caught in the well-named hermeneutic circle.

9) Anthropology and history are the disciplines in which the human attempts hardest to encounter an other who thinks differently. They provide the means for trivializing the present. This process is called paranoia, and anthropology and history are unnecessary to produce it. Total paranoia is total truth, but total paranoia forecloses the possibility of communicating that truth. 10) Irony contains both pistis and gnosis, and it refuses to relinquish either. Irony is the reality of insisting on truth despite its

impossibility. Irony is only possible as the result of a sincere act. Without that sincere act, which is an assertion of the truth, there is only the convenience. When there is only the convenience, there is no longer irony, but mere appearance. All that remains is the simulacrum. 11) Truth without the aid of a convenient falsehood is impossible to utter. As total paranoia it is insanity. As a false claim to truth, it is merely sentiment or affect. It does not ring true and comes across as bad acting. The absence of any truth is a manipulation of appearances. Irony is the only means of conveying the truth because it marries the truth to a necessary falsehood. Do not be taken in by the false irony of the simulacrum or of the jingoistic sentiment that falsely claims gnosis. True irony is always a sincere act of love, and if it is true, its love is palpable. 12) Irony is not a state of malaise; it is not something to get upset about. It is a non-normative condition, just as the human is a non-normative condition. That is to say, it is a phenomenon of a passive system. It is a symptom of the system of which we are a part. Any normative claim with respect to irony is a political claim attempting to claim power, where power is the means to change.

14) My mother lives inside me, and I contain her algorithm. If you ask me what she thinks about some new thing, I can tell you by running it through her algorithm, which is to say, by running it through a part of me. My brothers and sisters live in me because I contain them. They also contain me. We are not in-dividual. To the contrary, we are always

JOE BLANKHOLM

13) Individuality is an appearance, as is freedom; they are convenient. Boundedness is an appearance. The truth of non-individuality and non-boundedness, if it is to be conveyed, must be conveyed through the necessarily bounded medium of language, which is convenient. This is ironic.

dividual. 15) Dividuality is another way of describing love. Love is my porousness to the differences that I conveniently take to be others. The degree of my porousness is the degree of my love. Individuality is the absence of love, and it is an impossible condition. 16) I will die. You will die, too. 17) I will not die alone because I am dividual. You will not die alone, either. You are not an individual.

JOE BLANKHOLM

18) Our parents will die, if they havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t already. Our children will die. Everything will pass away. We can dismiss this by saying everything is convenience and mere appearance, but this is not ironic. This is a false claim to truth. Everything is convenience and truth at once. I will mourn the loss of part of myself, and others will mourn my death as they lose part of themselves. This loss will be real. We can understand this loss as a necessary part of the passive system, and this will give us a framework for processing that loss. But it will not remove the pain. The suffering of loss is a symptom of dividuality.

19) Some people will tell you they are enlightened, meaning that they can no longer suffer because they have severed all attachments. These people are claiming to be individuals, but we know by their very act of being and communicating that they are dividuals. They contain within them myriad other algorithms, not only of humans, but of other sentient and non-sentient beings. Their individuality is a lie. Everyone suffers. 20) Thought is dividual. I keep lists of events and lists of tasks. I keep lists of names and ways to contact the possessors of those names. Others keep these lists, too, and still others make these lists

more accessible. My thought is not individual, nor is it contained within the bounds of my body. My thought is hopelessly derivative and bounded, except where it is always not even a part of me, and I cannot even imagine its limits. 21) My thought and my body are not separate. I cannot focus when I have hunger or fatigue. I theorize my hunger and my fatigue by attributing external causes, and sometimes I blame others for the vague but real discomfort I experience. I feel the pain of immaterial thought in the form of stress. To separate the mind and the body is incoherent, though at times it is convenient. When it ceases to be convenient, it will become completely false. It will never cease to be convenient. 22) When I am hurt, I will hurt others. When others are hurt, they will hurt me. When I am insecure, I will attempt to achieve security. The lack of security is the basis of all violence. The attempt to obtain security is the cause of violence. Every violent act is issued forth from insecurity. 23) Total security is impossible. The cessation of all violence is impossible. The mitigation of violence is possible. The increase of security is possible.

25) Violence depends upon the myth that it accomplishes its goal at hand. That goal is always security. Some violence achieves security and other violence does not. Some violence achieves only short-term security. The truth of the myth of violence is that it rests upon the goal of security, and the truth of violence is that it results from insecurity.

JOE BLANKHOLM

24) A better understanding of security and insecurity is possible. Arising from this understanding of insecurity, there is the possibility of mitigating violence.

26) Any understanding of security is based in an understanding of the dividual and the individual. Every act of violence ought to ask after what is security and what is dividual. 27) Every act of violence ought to ask how the individual depends upon the other for its constitution. That is to say, the dividual is the individual and the other, and every act of violence is always necessarily a violent act against the self. Whether this act is necessary or advisable for the achievement of security, and for whom and whether such security is achieved are necessary considerations of violence. 28) Love is dividuality. Love does not sever the dividual into that which becomes individual. 29) Love is the presencing of one being to another such that the boundaries of their beings become ironic. That is to say, love makes boundaries into mere conveniences that mask a gnosis of underlying oneness. Love is thus ironic because it is always manifest multiplicity and implicit oneness.

JOE BLANKHOLM

30) Love becomes love as it becomes irony, but love can only be achieved by sincere acts. False love is the appearance of oneness. Mad love is the disappearance of individuality.

31) The convenient forms of all passive systems will come to pass. 32) Loving systems and unloving systems will come to pass. 33) All humans will come to pass. 34) Mountains and rivers will come to pass. All animals and plants will come to pass. The earth will come to pass as the sun is coming to pass. The sun will eat the earth and the rest of the galaxy,

and nothing will remain that will resemble any convenient form. 35) Love is our real condition. Dividuality is our real condition. 36) So long as the human remains aware of itself, it will struggle against insecurity. 37) A fuller love is the fuller achievement of our real condition. A fuller love is the achievement of great dividuality, but not merely the appearance of dividuality. A fuller love is the presencing of more beings to one another such that they come to live within one another. A fuller love is predicated upon understanding, but it does not culminate in understanding. 38) A fuller love culminates in greater dividuality and a fuller presencing of being. 39) Greater dividuality, greater love, and greater presencing of being are only possible through irony. True irony is always an act of sincerity. Acts of true sincerity are the most aesthetically desirable. 40) This document is necessarily the manifest act of hypocrisy. It contains its own negation, and this negation imbues it with its only value. This is ironic. JOE BLANKHOLM 77

HILARY SAND

Manifesto: It’s An Ideology In Here “It’s much easier to wear a Chairman Mao button and wave your fists in the air and all that, than it is to read The Communist Manifesto and things like that and get involved in politics.” -Lester Bangs And yet, arguably, the point of a manifesto, Communist, Cubist, Christian, what have you, is exactly to get the reader wearing pins and waving their fists in the air; what is the use of agreement if it isn’t invested in something? Agreement is power, and power is the potential for effect and affect, therefore, the fist-pumpers and the politicians are equally essential to the task of the manifesto, but who feeds whom? The fist-waver if educated may decide that the Manifesto is lacking, and create his or her own, but hand the same person the button and they’ll line up to take the fall for the cause; simple, straightforward mob mentality applies here, and it is the manifesto that acts as the vehicle to spur and stir the mob. The manifesto is intended to result in action in two parties and in two manners. First, it requests, even demands, action and engagement, even practice and behavior modification, on the part of the reader/viewer; that action can be as simple as a nod or, in the opposite extreme, a demand for vociferous violence and destruction. Second, it promises and delivers action on the part of its producer, it delivers itself as a guide or structure for those actions and it promises future instances of the utilization of this modality. It is a self-instituting mandate, one that defines the terms of its own fulfillment as well as creating an unsought contract with a public. Originally utilized primarily in courts, the 79

HILARY SAND 80

concept of manifesto has considerably broadened to encompass many of the humanities and word- or movement-based discourses, in particular over the past 100 years. Let us remember from aesthetics the few Futurist Manifestos, the two of Surrealism, the numerous of the Dadaists, the Fauves, DeStijl, ARBKD, the Muralists, and so on and so forth; if you were a movement in the twentieth century, someone wrote you a manifesto. There was an overabundance. Mary Ann Caws says: “[The efficacy] of the artistic manifesto whose work will be carried on in another world altogether—aesthetic battles having different consequences—depends on its context as well as its cleverness, and on the talents of its producer.” Any manifesto functions much in the same manner as much political or politicized speech: to create out of an affected response an effective response. Caws sets up the situation that the aesthetic or artistic manifesto is contingent upon a particular place and time: “The manifest proclamation itself marks a moment, whose trace it leaves as a post-event commemoration.” For Caws this is an affirmative grounding of the document in a particular conversation and situation that sets up the occurrence of the manifesto, lending it relevance and value in its contingency. But at the same time this statement is implicating an element of archaism in the document itself, because this value comes from its relation to certain temporal and spatial realities. This suggests that the very relationship that the manifesto formulates with its spectators is both predicated on and experienced within the moment of its own production and weakens with time, with the ‘natural’ or at least ‘naturalized’ overturn of aesthetic production, as well as the constantly shifting conditions of economies for aesthetic creation, in both fiscal and social senses. But the concept of ‘commemoration’ inherent in the creation of a manifesto is relevant not only in the sense that the ideas that lie within a particular time frame, a Zeitgeist, for the spectator, the reader/viewer, but also for the

HILARY SAND

artist. So from the standpoint of production, a manifesto is essentially nullified upon the moment of its first realization, in the hands of the reader who is its intended audience. It is tied to specificity, as the product of an accumulation and conglomeration of the past, a manifestation of the body of thought and work and theory and creation that underlies the artistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own purpose and intention, as is any aesthetic product or project. A manifesto is a conceptual monument, erected like the stele of Hammurabi, establishing with absolute clarity the ruler of all and what all he rules. What is more troublesome and worrisome to me is how work produced from the content or impetus of monuments to the past escapes it, and maintains a relation to the present. The implication of setting out aims, restrictions, goals, guides, and rules of thumb of any size are that these containers will in every way remain sufficient to encapsulate and continue to necessitate furthered production. A manifesto is inclusive of those objects produced under its letterhead, they should each match the prototype, not in the form or formula but in intention, in direction; the embodiment of a unique type of tunnel vision. The seriality of the manifestos produced by groups and movements of the first half of the twentieth century belies this conception. What it means to produce a manifesto is an interesting question, but perhaps even more intriguing is the question of what it means to revise a manifesto, as well as what factors and relationships necessitate and then permit the revision. The very notion of seriality implicates change, an alteration in significance or signification. Ideologies are radioactive, they are incredibly unstable. Manifestos are mere snapshots of ideologies, freezing them in frame, in context, but on the premise of the general and eternal. A manifesto gives ground to the projected, potential work, but when that work begins to extricate itself from these poetically rendered prose prisons, what is the manifesto? September 2010

PROVISIONAL GOV. OF SHADOWS

Machine Manifesto: Two Position Papers on Global Art Policy for the Coming Fiscal Year A Report from the Department of Projected Futures of the Provisional Government of Shadows I.

Device. Situation. Event. Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. - Benjamin Franklin Civil war ran from city to city, and the places it arrived last carried to a still greater excess the cunning of their enterprises and the atrocity of their reprisals. Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal supporter; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question was slandered as incapacity to act. Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting a justifiable means of selfdefense. The extremist was always trustworthy, his opponent a suspect. -Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War Book III Ch. 82 Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war, and such a war is of every man against every man. - Hobbes, Leviathan Part I Ch. xiii

â&#x20AC;Ścivil war continues even when it is said to be absent or provisionally brought under control. The modern State, which purports to put an end to civil war, is instead its continuation by other means. - Tiqqun, Introduction to Civil War aphorisms 28 & 38

Situation.

PROVISIONAL GOV. OF SHADOWS

Can we even remember what the word device means? Or event, situation, security, homeland, interrogation - the entire lexicon of the war on terror? When words change meanings, the winds of civil war are blowing strong. As the French thinkers of the Tiqqun group knew more than a decade ago, the State does not end the war of all against all â&#x20AC;&#x201C; it enshrines it in stone. It is a war of those who run on the flow of emergency and panic against the bodies whose fear glands pump into that machine. And it is a machine, a power engine that diverts a river of terror into the turbines of empire.

But machines, devices, need other devices that run on their products and to refine their fuels. Every cycle exists in a chain of cycles, and every device is vulnerable to another device. Art makes devices, mechanisms, theater, and occasionally a peek at the means by and the purposes for which art, techne, has been harnessed. Deus ex machine, the god appears from the machine, the god shows what the machine is, and what it does. Art can be a device for short-circuiting the terror machine.

Device. What kind of device will short circuit the terror machine? One that shows that the security machine is one that runs not on real menace but on the production and consumption of fear. We need a

laugh machine, a glee engine, an absurdity alarm. Security does not make us more secure. Let us build machines that trade a little safety for liberty.

Event. What happens when we use the words of the terror lexicon against the empire? Imagine signs placed on parked cars in New York reading WARNING DEVICE. How many people will call the bomb squad, how many hours will be spent determining whether these cars contain devices? How many hours of surveillance will be diverted determining whether the cars are a threat? In those moments, art makes a trade â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a little less security, a little more freedom. The empire only knows one kind of device, the fear device, the threat device. But the word bomb that can make the police apparatus appear as what it is, an input-output machine that takes in language and shits SWAT teams, that is a worthy machine indeed, a warning device that like a Geiger counter pinpoints the locus of fear emissions.

Situation. Device. Event. Welcome to the front. II.

Collapse We are living through the collapse of a civilization. These things happen, from time to time. Whether we wish the downfall of our own civilization or not is, frankly, irrelevant. Whether we see the final fall in our life time or not, we are also living in a moment that gives us the privilege to send a message to the future, as the ancients sent us messages about themselves. They sent them in grand sculptures and ruined

PROVISIONAL GOV. OF SHADOWS

We know how to take a warning: the terror machine is crazy.

temples, garbage heaps in Egypt and letters buried in anaerobic soils in England, in codices copied over and over by scribes, and in single volumes of dirty poems hidden in private libraries.

PROVISIONAL GOV. OF SHADOWS

We already know some remnants they will find: the remains of industrial war imprinted on manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most ancient places, precious landfills overflowing with our cast-offs, crumbled metropolises of shattered glass and rusting steel, trace elements embedded in the growth rings of trees that first saw the light the day before Columbus did, zebra mussels in the Great Lakes, secret desert hordes of spent nuclear fuel.

Perhaps we might be able also to tell those who come next, in a hundred years or a hundred centuries, that we had more than things. Where do we keep our ideas when our minds are dust? Perishable magnetic drives, discs of plastic that demand a whole array of transient technologies to be read â&#x20AC;&#x201C; trust not to these. In libraries, soon to be looted for kindling? Art amassed in great collections with locks soon to be smashed? Any vault that guards enough material useful for warmth or power will be scattered to the four winds or smashed by the fists of hungry frustration, and any that can be defended against these forces must perforce be in the hands of the most execrable of men, the ones who will kill the starving for the things they wish to keep. No allies these, for we small and fragile ones. What model, then, for our lifeboats? The small, precious object, the one that fits in a rucksack, that brings a moment of respite, that hides in a small collection of baubles in a box in a bombedout basement under rubble, or lives in the last book shelf in America, nestled between new pickles and pruning manuals on a hidden farm in the mountains. Survival of the small, the things kept by the hearth and the enduring heart. Let us prepare viruses for the spirit, let us

infect the future with small things. Let us take up the best of the trash heap, and the best of the precious object, and forge vessels that will preserve our ecstasies and our horrors, that the ones to come may know something of our joys and our tremors and our night sweats. We know how much can be built or imagined on the vaguest whispers of the past.

Seed the apocalypse with words.

PROVISIONAL GOV. OF SHADOWS

These things already exist, disassembled and unvalued. We live in a world over-abundant in printed words and multiplied meanings. There are kinds of lifeboats to be fashioned. Try this is one. Make books, little ones, from the best pages of all your books, only one page from each book. Throw away the names of the authors, leave their words. Reprint them one by one, bind them together like bulletproof bibles of discarded newspapers, stitch them with stout thread between wooden covers, give them to strangers. One by one by one. Ask fifty people each to choose one page and send it to you. Print each one fifty times, bind them together, send your books back. Some will rot. Some will burn. Some will be buried. A few will gather dust in corners or laughs at cocktail parties. These may live, and the one that becomes dear to one soul.

Unabomber’s Manifesto The following is full text of the Unabomber’s Manifesto. INTRODUCTION

DONALD DEADALUS

1. The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the lifeexpectancy of those of us who live in “advanced” countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in “advanced” countries.

2. The industrial-technological system may survive or it may break down. If it survives, it MAY eventually achieve a low level of physical and psychological suffering, but only after passing through a long and very painful period of adjustment and only at the cost of permanently reducing human beings and many other living organisms to engineered products and mere cogs in the social machine. Furthermore, if the system survives, the consequences will be inevitable: There is no way of reforming or modifying the system so as to prevent it from depriving people of dignity and autonomy. 3.

If the system breaks down the consequences

Yiddish to English translation vell.sf.ca.us (). Yes Confusion List The most revolutionary. Children Developing countries Years of experience in social security. In other words, the Psychological Consequences of the attack. (Third World), physical Negative Impacts on the environment. Information Technology Growth If you want to forget Part Loss and Increasing pain. Patients Developing Countries.

DONALD DEADALUS

2: Yes. Reduction in most Vehicles Physical and mental. Plate. March live. Enter our society is very important System life can be Prevented. Exchange system, developed by Dignity and freedom.

3: If your system. 89

will still be very painful. But the bigger the system grows the more disastrous the results of its breakdown will be, so if it is to break down it had best break down sooner rather than later.

DONALD DEADALUS

4. We therefore advocate a revolution against the industrial system. This revolution may or may not make use of violence: it may be sudden or it may be a relatively gradual process spanning a few decades. We canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t predict any of that. But we do outline in a very general way the measures that those who hate the industrial system should take in order to prepare the way for a revolution against that form of society. This is not to be a POLITICAL revolution. Its object will be to overthrow not governments but the economic and technological basis of the present society.

5. In this article we give attention to only some of the negative developments that have grown out of the industrial-technological system. Other such developments we mention only briefly or ignore altogether. This does not mean that we regard these other developments as unimportant. For practical reasons we have to confine our discussion to areas that have received insuffi- cient public attention or in which we have something new to say. For example, since there are well-developed environmental and wilderness movements, we have written very little about environmental degradation or the destruction of wild nature, even though we consider these to be highly important. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MODERN LEFTISM 6. Almost everyone will agree that we live in a deeply troubled society. One of the most widespread manifestations of the craziness of our world is leftism, so a discussion of the psychology of leftism can serve as an introduction to the discussion of the problems of modern society in general.

Not bad patch growth. Although the most damage. This is only temporary. 4: vk Revolution is a word. Violent revolution. It is a process that takes 10 years. I / should I stay, I can not wait I hate my industry. Art with other Rebels. The project is not political attacks. Technical and economic crisis. The company today.

Only five negative report. Industry The system is only temporary, and two What, one is right. Worse of all realistic goals If you are interested For example, if there is something new. Translation Nothing better environment The members are very important.

6 almost all agree that it is very difficult to buy. Special edition. Fortunately, the pilot project. Programme Summary Usually

DONALD DEADALUS

With oversosyalizatyon. Hiundai family Psychology, memory and contemporary

DONALD DEADALUS

7. But what is leftism? During the first half of the 20th century leftism could have been practically identified with social- ism. Today the movement is fragmented and it is not clear who can properly be called a leftist. When we speak of leftists in this article we have in mind mainly socialists, collectivists, “politically correct” types, feminists, gay and disability activists, animal rights activists and the like. But not everyone who is associated with one of these movements is a leftist. What we are trying to get at in discussing leftism is not so much a movement or an ideology as a psychological type, or rather a collection of related types. Thus, what we mean by “leftism” will emerge more clearly in the course of our discussion of leftist psychology (Also, see paragraphs 227-230.)

8. Even so, our conception of leftism will remain a good deal less clear than we would wish, but there doesn’t seem to be any remedy for this. All we are trying to do is indicate in a rough and approximate way the two psychological tendencies that we believe are the main driving force of modern leftism. We by no means claim to be telling the WHOLE truth about leftist psychology. Also, our discussion is meant to apply to modern leftism only. We leave open the question of the extent to which our discussion could be applied to the leftists of the 19th and early 20th century. 9. The two psychological tendencies that underlie modern leftism we call “feelings of inferiority” and “oversocialization.” Feelings of inferiority are characteristic of modern leftism as a whole, while oversocialization is characteristic only of a certain segment of modern leftism; but this segment is highly influential.

07:20 Sec. Today socialist. Business Dispersed. I love Judi band. Our mass socialist political and civil rights, â&#x20AC;&#x153;General.â&#x20AC;? Sex workers can not claim the rights of animals are moved. However, if all Indicators. Vietnam several options. Spirit and soul link. On the other hand, so Left. Psychology and 227-230.

8 and love, and resistance Perhaps the most important. Each of these problems. We understand that the nature of psychology. Always produces time Psychology and difficult. I asked the situation. How to talk 07:20 and 20

DONALD DEADALUS

9: There are two types of Mentally modern adage. Click oversosyalizatyon table. I thought, modern

FEELINGS OF INFERIORITY

DONALD DEADALUS

10. By “feelings of inferiority” we mean not only inferiority feelings in the strictest sense but a whole spectrum of related traits: low self-esteem, feelings of powerlessness, depressive tendencies, defeatism, guilt, self-hatred, etc. We argue that modern leftists tend to have such feelings (possibly more or less repressed) and that these feelings are decisive in determining the direction of modern leftism.

11. When someone interprets as derogatory almost anything that is said about him (or about groups with whom he identifies) we conclude that he has inferiority feelings or low self-esteem. This tendency is pronounced among minority rights advocates, whether or not they belong to the minority groups whose rights they defend. They are hypersensitive about the words used to designate minori- ties. The terms “negro,” “oriental,” “handicapped” or “chick” for an African, an Asian, a disabled person or a woman originally had no derogatory connotation. “Broad” and “chick” were merely the feminine equivalents of “guy,” “dude” or “fellow.” The negative connotations have been attached to these terms by the activists themselves. Some animal rights advocates have gone so far as to reject the word “pet” and insist on its replacement by “animal companion.” Leftist anthropologists go to great lengths to avoid saying anything about primitive peoples that could conceivably be interpreted as negative. They want to replace the word “primitive” by “nonliterate.” They seem almost paranoid about anything that might suggest that any primitive culture is inferior to our own. (We do not mean to imply that primitive cultures ARE inferior to ours. We merely point out the hypersensitivity of leftish anthropologists.) 12. Those who are most sensitive about “politically incorrect” terminology are not the average black ghetto-dweller, Asian immigrant,

In my life. 10: gap. But less painful. Grief, sorrow, Behavioral, emotional Be the error, apologized, now believes it can. (What’s memory • justifikatyon is to to determine image

12 Political significance. Immigrants from Africa and Asia too. Domestic violence with Disabilities, but a good

DONALD DEADALUS

11 aifealtas report. National Council (problem) Solving. Or you can look in the music Therefore, very small. All Rights Reserved. It will stay in the past. Africa “child” or “chicken.” “ Fall growth and the opening Credits. Large Bird price “and women alike. “Old High” left “and” If the answer konotasyon If animals army. The distribution of natural gold. Animals can not remain when Working with people. If a negative impression of the United Nations. “ “Yes, revenge.” The report is required. This is not (hard to do Two cultures very little time. Human research.)

abused woman or disabled person, but a minority of activists, many of whom do not even belong to any “oppressed” group but come from privileged strata of society. Political correct- ness has its stronghold among university professors, who have secure employment with comfortable salaries, and the majority of whom are heterosexual, white males from middle-class families. 13. Many leftists have an intense identification with the problems of groups that have an image of being weak (women), defeated (American Indians), repellent (homosexuals), or otherwise inferior. The leftists themselves feel that these groups are inferior. They would never admit it to themselves that they have such feelings, but it is precisely because they do see these groups as inferior that they identify with their problems. (We do not suggest that women, Indians, etc., ARE inferior; we are only making a point about leftist psychology).

DONALD DEADALUS

14. Feminists are desperately anxious to prove that women are as strong as capable as men. Clearly they are nagged by a fear that women may NOT be as strong and as capable as men.

15. Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality. The reasons that leftists give for hating the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real motives. They SAY they hate the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIAS- TICALLY points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western civilization.Thus it is clear that these faults are not the leftist’s real motive for hating America and the West. He hates America and the West

woman. Kharbis in Books Group. School safeti Floor and household income. Class is the father of the family.

13 workers in Solving problems. Group (shield), water, trade Unions and women (offset L) (a) business garryak. Stock management Deyoung. Families can not do. Regular guide for women (the United States and other countries are asking. However, on the left) is a Psychological thing.

14 women and control. Women Identified people. We have no control.

DONALD DEADALUS

15: Links in Developing countries to send their hate. Beauty and comfort. I hate the American West Hate white culture is a good idea. Western officials are trying to hate. Moosa (Moses law. He said the wilt Sex, race, war, Imperialism and other However, social accident. Culture and the best way to determine the cause of happiness. Saeyminton positive. (Broadband is best), and fines Yes, Western civilization. European Union, because they want to go West King South reliable and efficient.

because they are strong and successful. 16. Words like “self-confidence,” “self-reliance,” “initiative”, “enterprise,” “optimism,” etc. play little role in the liberal and leftist vocabulary. The leftist is anti-individualistic,procollectivist. He wants society to solve everyone’s needs for them, take care of them. He is not the sort of person who has an inner sense of confidence in his own ability to solve his own problems and satisfy his own needs. The leftist is antagonistic to the concept of competition because, deep inside, he feels like a loser.

DONALD DEADALUS

17. Art forms that appeal to modern leftist intellectuals tend to focus on sordidness, defeat and despair, or else they take an orgiastic tone, throwing off rational control as if there were no hope of accomplishing anything through rational calculation and all that was left was to immerse oneself in the sensations of the moment.

18. Modern leftist philosophers tend to dismiss reason, science, objective reality and to insist that everything is culturally relative. It is true that one can ask serious questions about the foundations of scientific knowledge and about how, if at all, the concept of objective reality can be defined. But it is obvious that modern leftist philosophers are not simply coolheaded logicians systematically analyzing the foundations of knowledge. They are deeply involved emotionally in their attack on truth and reality. They attack these concepts because of their own psychological needs. For one thing, their attack is an outlet for hostility, and, to the extent that it is successful, it satisfies the drive for power. More importantly, the leftist hates science and rationality because they classify certain beliefs as true (i.e., successful, superior) and other beliefs as false (i.e. failed, inferior). The leftist’s feelings of inferiority run so deep that he cannot tolerate any classification of some

16 “historical” and “religion” is expected. Independent and less hope. “ Contact us male In the same time - the information is important for Engineers RSS comments -. Knowledge and belief. Entities is the idea that the leadership of the enemy. Competition

17: The issue is stopping and creative imagination. Forum River, buying bad. Of course, she has pictures of all national Food Additives. Open House

DONALD DEADALUS

18: left and R & D philosophy This is, however, the impact of nature and culture Good relations. Inkludes scientific and technical subjects Comments, but since Cold logic of modern philosophy. System development. I really fell in font of emotional involvement. 3 spirit The attacks and Threats. Good nutrition is the answer. Information is very important and direct suggestions. (In addition, all credit to God) to improve Me (right at least), but if not, I think, of Weak evidence Good or bad, or But in any case, the mayor of events in Europe See definition of mental illness and personal contacts. Full of natural resources and Tackling human

things as successful or superior and other things as failed or inferior. This also underlies the rejection by many leftists of the concept of mental illness and of the utility of IQ tests. Leftists are antagonistic to genetic explanations of human abilities or behavior because such explanations tend to make some persons appear superior or inferior to others. Leftists prefer to give society the credit or blame for an individual’s ability or lack of it. Thus if a person is “inferior” it is not his fault, but society’s, because he has not been brought up properly.

DONALD DEADALUS

19. The leftist is not typically the kind of person whose feelings of inferiority make him a braggart, an egotist, a bully, a self-promoter, a ruthless competitor. This kind of person has not wholly lost faith in himself. He has a deficit in his sense of power and self-worth, but he can still conceive of himself as having the capacity to be strong, and his efforts to make himself strong produce his unpleasant behavior. [1] But the leftist is too far gone for that. His feelings of inferiority are so ingrained that he cannot conceive of himself as individually strong and valuable. Hence the collectivism of the leftist. He can feel strong only as a member of a large organization or a mass movement with which he identifies himself.

100

20. Notice the masochistic tendency of leftist tactics. Leftists protest by lying down in front of vehicles, they intentionally provoke police or racists to abuse them, etc. These tactics may often be effective, but many leftists use them not as a means to an end but because they PREFER masochistic tactics. Self-hatred is a leftist trait. 21. Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principle, and moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist

Trafficking. Confidence is a program that most Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s smaller than others. Lending rate in my community Responsibility for the Accuracy or â&#x20AC;&#x153;We were wrong because Rev.

19: New and very weak Establishment impudent speech only. My interest in the Competitive family. Yes, but I have no courage. I do not think you can. Ketidaknyamanan to improve performance. Kustomers, and music (country) failure A very Impressive. Independent and effective We believe that organizations See Sports

21: E - mail pictures production, Mental and moral law in this area. Oversosyalized. However, in worth. More money in the world The important thing is to the left.

DONALD DEADALUS

20: Left wing violence against business interests and relationships. Given. Police Brutality and Racism in a few steps. Penultyem . But as mazotshist personal hatred. Paul.

101

activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action discriminates against them. But leftist activists do not take such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm black people, because the activists’ hostile attitude toward the white majority tends to intensify race hatred.

DONALD DEADALUS

22. If our society had no social problems at all, the leftists would have to INVENT problems in order to provide themselves with an excuse for making a fuss.

102

23. We emphasize that the foregoing does not pretend to be an accurate description of everyone who might be considered a leftist. It is only a rough indication of a general tendency of leftism. OVERSOCIALIZATION 24. Psychologists use the term “socialization” to designate the process by which children are trained to think and act as society demands. A person is said to be well socialized if he believes in and obeys the moral code of his society and fits in well as a functioning part of that society. It may seem senseless to say that many leftists are oversocialized, since the leftist is perceived as a rebel. Nevertheless, the position can be defended. Many leftists are not such rebels as they seem.

In addition, all the participants. Spelling of the country is ready to help. Such as number of black and white. Better results. Suitable for cleaning. The world in the Diplomatic service. Fortunately positive thinking, good The Effects of discrimination Life and emotional needs. Real black case, but the problem is not the tribe. Angry Bennett law Satan black. Vearing white Hate path elements.

22: measuring social relationships. PI. Fund

23 White, Ann / A Only one case has left a message. Konkussyon DONALD DEADALUS

Oversosyalizatyon. 24 Psychological, social and language settings. Education and social development of children. Terms society. Material and social values and laws. The combination of youth. If I go to Pakistan But I think that the impact of the message. Disputes between the two countries.

103

DONALD DEADALUS

25. The moral code of our society is so demanding that no one can think, feel and act in a completely moral way. For example, we are not supposed to hate anyone, yet almost everyone hates somebody at some time or other, whether he admits it to himself or not. Some people are so highly socialized that the attempt to think, feel and act morally imposes a severe burden on them. In order to avoid feelings of guilt, they continually have to deceive themselves about their own motives and find moral explanations for feelings and actions that in reality have a non-moral origin. We use the term “oversocialized” to describe such people. [2]

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26. Oversocialization can lead to low self-esteem, a sense of powerlessness, defeatism, guilt, etc. One of the most important means by which our society socializes children is by making them feel ashamed of behavior or speech that is contrary to society’s expectations. If this is overdone, or if a particular child is especially susceptible to such feelings, he ends by feeling ashamed of HIMSELF. Moreover the thought and the behavior of the over-socialized person are more restricted by society’s expectations than are those of the lightly socialized person. The majority of people engage in a significant amount of naughty behavior. They lie, they commit petty thefts, they break traffic laws, they goof off at work, they hate someone, they say spiteful things or they use some underhanded trick to get ahead of the other guy. The oversocialized person cannot do these things, or if he does do them he generates in himself a sense of shame and self-hatred. The oversocialized person cannot even experience, without guilt, thoughts or feelings that are contrary to the accepted morality; he cannot think “unclean” thoughts. And socialization is not just a matter of morality; we are socialized to confirm to many norms of behavior that do not fall under the heading of morality. Thus the oversocialized person is kept on a psychological leash and spends his life running

25/05: Torah, values and society For example, basic ethics. I think this method. If in no time. Mental Safety Shop. Thoughts and feelings, and actions speak. End of life child oversosyalized. Application as well, 2] [.

Dvakatehosesta not oversosyalizatyon. And anemia, and fatigue of the past. Children know Private low self esteem and social Waiting for children. Download Proposals imatsvel sensitive.

DONALD DEADALUS 105

on rails that society has laid down for him. In many oversocialized people this results in a sense of constraint and powerlessness that can be a severe hardship. We suggest that oversocialization is among the more serious cruelties that human beings inflict on one another.

DONALD DEADALUS

27. We argue that a very important and influential segment of the modern left is oversocialized and that their oversocialization is of great importance in determining the direction of modern leftism. Leftists of the oversocialized type tend to be intellectuals or members of the upper-middle class. Notice that university intellectuals (3) constitute the most highly socialized segment of our society and also the most left-wing segment.

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28. The leftist of the oversocialized type tries to get off his psychological leash and assert his autonomy by rebelling. But usually he is not strong enough to rebel against the most basic values of society. Generally speaking, the goals of todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leftists are NOT in conflict with the accepted morality. On the contrary, the left takes an accepted moral principle, adopts it as its own, and then accuses mainstream society of violating that principle. Examples: racial equality, equality of the sexes, helping poor people, peace as opposed to war, nonviolence generally, freedom of expression, kindness to animals. More fundamentally, the duty of the individual to serve society and the duty of society to take care of the individual. All these have been deeply rooted values of our society (or at least of its middle and upper classes (4) for a long time. These values are explicitly or implicitly expressed or presupposed in most of the material presented to us by the mainstream communications media and the educational system. Leftists, especially those of the oversocialized type, usually do not rebel against these principles but justify their hostility to society by claiming (with some degree of truth) that society is not living up to these principles.

Oversosyalized however. A small Their communities look Reception lies Remote! Hatred and illegal, and theft; Poor Patrick. They have their own oversosyalized. In addition, in each stage of work. Anger and shame. Oversosyalized.

DONALD DEADALUS 107

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REBECCA LIEBERMAN

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DAVID LASKY

GUIDELINES TO A PROPER PRACTICE: Do not want to be an Artist. Want to make Art. Want to see Art. All art should further the experience of living for at least one human. Judge each work against its absence. Lowly work answers questions no one asked of it. Laymen’s work asks little questions. Great work approaches the Great Questions. Art and engineering are not the same, nor are they mutually exclusive. Engineering is the response to external issues for a desired result. Art is the result of internal experiences. They are elements of the same object, and one is almost never present without the other, but they are not the same. “Art” confuses people, works do not. There are many definitions of the word “Art”, and works that misuse or misplace definitions of the word confuse people who use different definitions. The word is toned by its context and form. Mismatched forms, contexts, and audiences sew confusion, which is only sometimes constructive. More often than not, this kind of intentional confusion is merely quaint. You can let shame temper you, but never let it stop you. Art is a process of externalizing and mistranslating ourselves. It is scariest when we correctly translate. If you can express your art with words, then do 111

so, and make no art. Art is ineffable. There are philosophers and scientists to speak in words. Art is for something that is unspeakable. Writers make art, and use words, but their art is more than the sum of their words. The experience of reading a book of art can not be correctly experienced if paraphrased. There is an ineffable experience in the reading of the book entire. If your work can be communicated with works, speak those words, and make no art. Titles are crutches. Artist statements are crutches. Grants and residencies are crutches. Crutches have their place, but we are not meant to use them always. The people in charge of money for the arts rarely know what is worth making. Museums are mausoleums. Pay your respects to the dead. The works there are dead, and you should not try to make work for a dead space. Make your work to live. No medium can claim “Art” as its alone. Each medium has truths that others lack.

DAVID LASKY

Lame work dies with its maker. Great work need not be immortal, but it should survive it’s maker.

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The great work does not makes us say, “who made this, how was this made?” The great work makes us ask, “What is this?” “how can this BE!?” Documentation is not the work itself. Documentation is its own work, with its own discipline. Because art reflects Life, it should direct your attention to Life. Art that speaks of art is permissible, but distasteful. To same “Art reflects itself,” perverts the relationship between art and

existence, and it is not the truth. Art is always reflecting the world, and art-about-art is only permissible because art is part of the world. Art should be made with a sense of good sportsmanship. Plan for how the work will be perceived and experienced. Do not plan for how it will be conceptualized. Take care in how you connect yourself to the work. It is small to use the work to further your persona. It is human to enjoy the work for itself. It is beautiful to let the work stand apart from you. It is beautiful for the work to exist without a source, an independent beast in the world. The process of making the work is practice and exercise in how to properly witness and interact with the world. Art is not “For the Masses.” There are so many definitions of “Art” and “The Masses” that the terms are not even ideals, they are meaningless.

Progress is a young, and very American value. Progress is necessary, but not sufficient. Progress is a reaction to the world, not the driving force behind the world.

DAVID LASKY

Be aware of what you are loving. Many people love their conceptualization of “Art” more than any artistic experience they have ever had. Many people love the culture of their Art more than any ideal or work they have ever seen. Many people love making work but have almost never enjoyed being audience to another’s work. None of these loves is higher or lower than the other, but it is foolish and ungraceful to do one thing and love another.

Art is the dutiful play. 113

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FRANK O’HARA

Personism: A Manifesto Everything is in the poems, but at the risk of sounding like the poor wealthy man’s Allen Ginsberg I will write to you because I just heard that one of my fellow poets thinks that a poem of mine that can’t be got at one reading is because I was confused too. Now, come on. I don’t believe in god, so I don’t have to make elaborately sounded structures. I hate Vachel Lindsay, always have; I don’t even like rhythm, assonance, all that stuff. You just go on your nerve. If someone’s chasing you down the street with a knife you just run, you don’t turn around and shout, “Give it up! I was a track star for Mineola Prep.” That’s for the writing poems part. As for their reception, suppose you’re in love and somebody’s mistreating (mal aimé) you, you don’t say, “Hey, you can’t hurt me this way, I care!” you just let all the different bodies fall where they may, and they always do may after a few months. But that’s not why you fell in love in the first place, just to hang onto life, so you have to take your chances and try to avoid being logical. Pain always produces logic, which is very bad for you. I’m not saying that I don’t have practically the most lofty ideas of anyone writing today, but what difference does that make? They’re just ideas. The only good thing about it is that when I get lofty enough I’ve stopped thinking and that’s when refreshment arrives. But how then can you really care if anybody gets it, or gets what it means, or if it improves them. Improves them for what? For death? Why hurry them along? Too many poets act like a middle-aged mother trying to get her kids to eat too much cooked meat, and potatoes with drippings (tears). I don’t give

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a damn whether they eat or not. Forced feeding leads to excessive thinness (effete). Nobody should experience anything they don’t need to, if they don’t need poetry bully for them. I like the movies too. And after all, only Whitman and Crane and Williams, of the American poets, are better than the movies. As for measure and other technical apparatus, that’s just common sense: if you’re going to buy a pair of pants you want them to be tight enough so everyone will want to go to bed with you. There’s nothing metaphysical about it. Unless, of course, you flatter yourself into thinking that what you’re experiencing is “yearning.”

FRANK O’HARA

Abstraction in poetry, which Allen recently commented on in It Is, is intriguing. I think it appears mostly in the minute particulars where decision is necessary. Abstraction (in poetry, not painting) involves personal removal by the poet. For instance, the decision involved in the choice between “the nostalgia of the infinite” and “the nostalgia for the infinite” defines an attitude towards degree of abstraction. The nostalgia of the infinite representing the greater degree of abstraction, removal, and negative capability (as in Keats and Mallarmé).

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Personism, a movement which I recently founded and which nobody knows about, interests me a great deal, being so totally opposed to this kind of abstract removal that it is verging on a true abstraction for the first time, really, in the history of poetry. Personism is to Wallace Stevens what la poési pure was to Béranger. Personism has nothing to do with philosophy, it’s all art. It does not have to do with personality or intimacy, far from it! But to give you a vague idea, one of its minimal aspects is to address itself to one person (other than the poet himself), thus evoking overtones of love without destroying love’s life-giving vulgarity, and sustaining the poet’s feelings towards the poem while preventing

love from distracting him into feeling about the person. That’s part of Personism. It was founded by me after lunch with LeRoi Jones on August 27, 1959, a day in which I was in love with someone (not Roi, by the way, a blond). I went back to work and wrote a poem for this person. While I was writing it I was realizing that if I wanted to I could use the telephone instead of writing the poem, and so Personism was born. It’s a very exciting movement which will undoubtedly have lots of adherents. It puts the poem squarely between the poet and the person, Lucky Pierre style, and the poem is correspondingly gratified. The poem is at last between two persons instead of two pages. In all modesty, I confess that it may be the death of literature as we know it. While I have certain regrets, I am still glad I got there before Alain Robbe-Grillet did. Poetry being quicker and surer than prose, it is only just that poetry finish literature off. For a time people thought that Artaud was going to accomplish this, but actually, for all their magnificence, his polemical writings are not more outside literature than Bear Mountain is outside New York State. His relation is no more astounding than Dubuffet’s to painting.

September 3, 1959

FRANK O’HARA

What can we expect from Personism? (This is getting good, isn’t it?) Everything, but we won’t get it. It is too new, too vital a movement to promise anything. But it, like Africa, is on the way. The recent propagandists for technique on the one hand, and for content on the other, had better watch out.

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CURVER THORODDSEN

Good Art Manifesto Bored of the exclusive, self-absorbed art we are interested in art that speaks to the general public. We feel that the last taboo, the last realm to explore is the one who is looked down on by the art scene. That’s the area that’s interesting today, the area where no self-gratifying hipster would ever go. Into the uncool. Why has this gap between art scene and public gotten bigger again. The public is now much more informed than in the 1950’s but art still tries to exclude itself, to be special. The art market is getting stronger as a force but art itself is getting weaker. We are interested in ideas not images. You can’t make a good idea twice but images can be mass produced. There’s nothing worse than self-expressive paintings. “My feelings, my feelings” the bad artist shouts, or even worse, whispers. Who gives a shit about your dented self and twisted feelings. Give us something bigger, something to expand our world. Don’t drag us into your miserable existence. Give us, don’t thrust upon us. The art market is boring. It enslaves artists and forces them to stagnate. Forces them to hack on the sellable idea to produce images for profit. Marketing tools have become the brushes of the 21st century. Sadly they are still mainly being used for the marketing of brushstrokes. We want to experience good art not solely see it. Good art is an idea not an image. Good art can be experienced through all mediums because it surpasses techniques and media. The bad artist tries to get technically better. The good artist doesn’t have to know any technique. The good artist

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creates while the bad artist practises.

CURVER THORODDSEN

You can add to the list if you know good art. If you are a bad artist you will know in your heart that you can not add to the list. Quit now to give more space for good art.

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Good art is fun but is not trying to be funny. Good art has magic but doesn’t try to charm Good art gives a new view not a view Good art is bigger than the sum of the parts Good art is bigger than a big sum of money Good art is deepening but doesn’t try to be deep Good art is not arty Good art expands the parameters of art, bad art works within parameters Good art is tomorrow not yesterday Good art leaves you wondering, bad art leaves you wandering Good art comes later but never late Good art experiments but doesn’t exploit Good art kicks ass but doesn’t kiss ass Good art doesn’t need explanation Good art is not the art market Good art is not the art piece Good art is never afraid but can be frightening Good art is an observatory not a circus Good art is not image making Good art is not image branding Good art is advanced but not technical Good art is not a technique Good art is great Good art does happen

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LIANA MOSKOWITZ + DAVID MUENZER

WORTHWHILE MANIFESTO Let us attempt to examine the qualities of things that are worthwhile. Such stuff might be artworks, experiences, processes, or physical objects. It may be whole or not whole. A shop-lined street runs through the western branch of a newly built mixed-use development featuring condos, retail, restaurants, cafes, bars, and a Saturday farmer’s market. Its narrow width and flagstone surface indicate its pedestrian-only use, and signify without successfully evoking the cramped, irregular streets of Old World Europe. In addition to the glassy store facades that line either side of the street, two subsidiary walls built 8 feet away from and parallel to the store windows further constrict the central walkway. These walls—too short to comfortably sit on, but too tall to be crossed over—are made from the same light composite stone as the entire development. These subsidiary walls are not worthwhile. Another example: a parent directs her children to observe the sight of a city skyline visible from car windows as the vehicle crosses a bridge. The city and the particular view may be familiar, even habitual, but the conscious redirection of attention to a point of view only possible in this bounded space (the 1.2 mi from toll booth to far bank), which is also necessarily temporary (the car’s minimum speed must be maintained without stopping), is a worthwhile activity. This worthwhile stuff can be described as single chain links, bearing weight through the support they invite from reciprocal parts. This quality is also oscillatory, realized only through multiple, but not simultaneous, states. 123

Louise Bourgeois’ late Maman sculptures—large freestanding casts in metal, resembling spiders—are good works of art; they are also not worthwhile. Salmon straining upstream each reproductive season spend the energy won by a lifetime feeding in the comparatively tranquil expanses of the ocean only to die directly after spawning. This rash expenditure of the salmon’s resources cannot be considered worthwhile. On the other hand, it is definitively worthwhile to consider the millions of years salmon have fed, swam, bred, and died in this way and furthermore, that without human interference, the species would likely continue to do so.

LIANA MOSKOWITZ + DAVID MUENZER

Attempting to make a facial expression outside of the range in which your muscles normally operate, in total darkness, is also a worthwhile activity.

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A final example: The glass windows bounding the interior of Mies van der Rohe’s Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin become a surface for lightly applied latex paint in Imi Knoebel’s otherwise almost empty 2008 show Zu Hilfe Zu Hilfe. Leaning behind coatroom walls rest stacks of geometric shapes made of composite wood, which suggest still-packed artworks, or excess construction materials stored in an out of the way place. Knoebel turns, through precise but impermanent actions, the rigidly determined structure of van der Rohe’s iconic building into the same stuff as the easily-configurable wooden prisms. This even-handed tugging on both history and present material circumstance is, in particular, worthwhile. Before reading these paragraphs today, you may have noted the weather report and allowed that information to format your choices in the following hours. However, by evening, those who got caught in the rain will know just as much as those conscientious individuals who checked in the morning. Likewise, we hope that our words can

configure your outlook.

LIANA MOSKOWITZ + DAVID MUENZER

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ALICIA MOUNTAIN

EXERCISE FOR PEOPLE AND OTHERS Remember when you wanted so much to live? Remember when you were trying to get yourself born and you looked like an alien and your bones were soft and smashed and you were pouring out of another person who’d never seen you but gave you a body? Remember that there was no doubt in you, no weariness, no time for breaths that didn’t bring you closer to being alive. And that was all there was—the opportunity to be. And it was the only thing you wanted. Remember when you thought it could last forever, before you knew much about forever? When you thought about the two of you, unending, and she’d smile and you could see where age would touch her face, though it wasn’t there yet, and she’d still be so beautiful when you got old together. You would get moments of terror not because you worried she’d ever leave you, but because there was not enough time in the universe (there’d never been) to have enough with her. You allowed yourself to wonder (only fleetingly) if you’d be able to survive when she would die, even though you were so young and the thought was ridiculous. Would I rather die a millisecond before her so I’d never live without her or a millisecond after so I wouldn’t miss a moment of her? And then your senses came back to you as she kissed your neck and you decided to never die. Remember when you were alone once and things seemed quiet and things seemed more clear, like you were seeing and hearing and feeling the world amplified for you. The morning before the sun was up and you saw the streetlights glow on gentle untouched snow. 127

In the sun when it was warmer and the wind picked up the smell of the grass you fell asleep on. The view from a mountain across land that goes on, only ending because your eyes want to leave you some mystery about whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s out there. And you feel small still, and you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t call out to anyone as the hair stands up on your arms, and you let it last as long as it lasts.

ALICIA MOUNTAIN

Mountain 2010

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1. I am the captain of this vessel of my self, but we are united by our desire to sail together; only together can we Voyage these waters.

Come along as we set out on this Fantastic Voyage of the soul!

Awake! Approach and join us for this journey. For a party has gathered. And this is THRUTH. It is full of the present moment. There is no distance to traverse by foot or automobile, for it is here and now. All that is required is that you slippity-slide from yourself, throw off your quotidian tribulations and the thousand indignities of the wage slave, and sail on in this fashion – this is what you must do. What do you think we name this party – nay, this MOVEMENT – so posessed of the dynamism of the moment? We shall call it the Lakeside Crew.

The Lakeside Manifesto

MATT HUNZIKER

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To the Land of Funk.

Come along and ride on a Fantastic Voyage!

2. In this land beside the Lake where we find ourselves, the music of the soul is at hand, all around; and we desire to join together and play it. For you. For all of us. 3. We. Want. To Be: A crew, resonating to the beat of this primordial music â&#x20AC;&#x201C; do not let NOTHING restrain you. We desire to feel only pleasure, the pleasure of this great music. 5. This MUSIC of which we speak is really real, truly a treasure. So come along! Pack your bags and join us! For we alone, we are all stranded Lakeside. Only when we join together can we ride out on this Fantastic Voyage! 6. We are the directors of this groove ship by which we plough the Lake of infinity. 7. As such, you are under our command, and we under yours. We all have an obligation to each other, to listen and to understand. 8. For the happiness of our PARTY rebounds greatly to our own happiness. 9. In this way we create the BEAT and are moved by it, and in so doing keep all the people dancing. 10. This music is a world of fantasy (and also VERY REAL â&#x20AC;&#x201C; these contradictions matter not). Let us live it together, and travel beyond the sea.

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BERT PALM

Manifest: Die Hedonistische Internationale • will Freude, Lust, Genuss und ein selbst bestimmtes Leben in Freiheit für alle Menschen! • sieht Hedonismus nicht als Motor einer dumpfen, materialistischen Spaßgesellschaft, sondern als Chance zur Überwindung des Bestehenden. • ist keine Organisation, sondern eine Idee, deren Ausgestaltung bei jedem selbst liegt. Niemand außer den Handelnden ist für Aktionen verantwortlich. Hedonisten und Hedonistinnen organisieren sich in verschiedensten Bündniskonstellationen um gezielt und ungezielt in Aktion zu treten. • erkennt an, dass die Wege zum schönen Leben steinig und verschlungen sind. Es gibt kein einzelnes Patentrezept, sondern viele. Die Ideen werden überall in den Köpfen geboren. Es gibt keine Ideologie, keinen Masterplan, keine weise Präsidentin, keine Führer, sondern vielmehr einen Bewusstwerdungsprozess, zu dem jeder Mensch mit seinen Ideen und seinem Tun beitragen kann. • weiß nicht wie die Ziele erreicht werden können, sondern nur, dass etwas passieren muss, um Freiheit und Genuss für alle zu verwirklichen. • ist überzeugt davon, dass Politik und Aktion Spaß machen können. Wo die Hierarchie beginnt, hört der Spaß auf. Wo der Spaß aufhört, beginnt die Hierarchie. • ist überzeugt davon in einer Welt leben zu wollen in der hochentwickelte Technologie der gesamten Menschheit ein Leben ohne Arbeitszwang

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und Ausbeutung, sondern in purer Hingebung an die Künste und die schönen Dinge ermöglicht. • setzt auf die Zusammenarbeit und freie Assoziation gleichberechtigter Individuen. • sieht ein, dass auch kleine Annäherungen an die Ziele des Hedonismus eine Verbesserung der Ausgangslage bedeuten. Sie erweitern die Möglichkeiten für kommende Auseinandersetzungen. • schafft temporäre hedonistische Zonen und Situationen um auf ihre Ideen und Ziele vorzugreifen. • hofft bei all diesen Auseinandersetzungen auf die lächelnde Selbstreflektion. Nur sie schützt davor sich selbst zu wichtig zu nehmen. • gibt sich die Farben Pink, Schwarz, Gold, Silber und Weiß. • will fröhliches Miteinander, Anarchie, die Ideen Epikurs, bunte Freude, Sinnlichkeit, Ausschweifung, Freundschaft, Gerechtigkeit, Toleranz, Freiheit, sexuelle Freizügigkeit, Nachhaltigkeit, Friede, freien Zugang zu Information, Kunst, kosmopolitisches Dasein, eine Welt ohne Grenzen und Diskriminierung und alle schönen Dinge - die heute nicht und vor allem nicht für alle Menschen verwirklicht sind.

BERT PALM

• will Freude, Freiheit, Alles!

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Der Spielraum für Ideen ist groß: Macht, was ihr wollt, nicht was ihr müsst!

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SKYE RUOZZI

A CALL TO ARMS To the dissatisfied artists; To the students and graduates who somehow got enrolled in the scheme of the university; To those who have labored over the skills but have lost their souls; To those who see the American motto of Freedom and Convenient Choice as our ultimate unraveling; To those who don’t choose to waste away in cubicles, who thought that the call of personal expression would by step that; To those who realize that revolution has historically been the only avenue for change and that the recent branding of the word is anathema to itself: I propose a collaboration: The combining of our forces to incubate ideas and to utilize our unlimited connections and to become a voice for our generation; We are the Internet generation and have been ignoring this obvious paradigm shift. The “intellectuals” do not gather in coffee houses, as they used to. There are no urban centers which draw them: The Paris of Mallame, Verlaine, Baudelaire; the Germany of Hege, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche; the Vienna of Freud, Feinstein, Schoenberg; the London of Marx, Engels; the Prague of the Art Nouveau and Kafka. We are now scattered, yet still connected; Poised to be the generation that progresses the planet rather than our own societies and cultures. Now is our time and I challenge you all to join hands, hearts, and minds, Forget the constraints of the paycheck and to take our rightful place in history.

(written at the symposium for the 50th Anniversary of the Guggenheim in New York after hearing the

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SKYE RUOZZI

sadly limited perspective of the architects and planners hat currently dominate the World of Design.)

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ROSIE DUPONT

See, right here See, right here / this is you awake. You think lots of things / like, “Where is the mustard” and “I have B.O.” You feel things in this state and pile them high with words – (“I’m angry paranoid about sex fuck me now wait did you cum.”) And then you get angry / sad / anxious because the words fall apart – I

ou a

noi s

d f e x u c k ga ahhhhh ! um um

uh…

And you get lost / out on the edges and borders / where everything fades – goes on without you, seems / not to care much. You reach out to touch what is there / but your hand slips through. You reach again, and this time your fingers connect – with something sticky / then scratchy / then it stings you just a bit / you recoil / sit there / humming and humming / you lean to the left / tilt your head to the right / still, you can’t see / you can only feel 141

And / you think, “I could go back.” “I could polish and scrub, until everything shines, furiously, awake.” But you could / reach out one more time, see what you find. You think, “I might get sucked in, never come out.” no matter. reach out. reach out / again and again and again, and again, and again, and again and again and again and again and again and again and again again and again and again and again and again and again

ROSIE DUPONT

and again!

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This book was published in conjunction with the exhibition MANIFEST-O, the inaugural project held at CONCRETE UTOPIA project space from October 15 - 29, 2010. The exhibition featured the work of Sebastien Benthall, Abigail Cohen + Ashley Smith, Cibyl Delaire, ClĂŠmence de Montgolfier + Niki Korth, Andrew Gorin, Pia Howell + Bailey Salisbury, Sara Greenberger Rafferty, Beau Rhee, Kate Ryan, Hillary Sand, Lane Sell, Nickolaus Typaldos, and Ryan Weber. CONCRETE UTOPIA is a project space devoted to the multifarious and innovative cultivation of creative practice and discourse. Co-founded and organized by Melanie Kress and Rosie duPont, UTOPIA takes as its aim collaboratively produced projects that result in exhibitions, installations, publications, offsite interventions, and documentation. Curated by Melanie Kress and Rosie duPont Printed October, 2010 in New York, NY contact: CONCRETE UTOPIA 72 Scholes Street Fourth Floor Brooklyn, NY 11206 www.concreteutopia.org info@concreteutopia.org